---
title: "Who will maintain the web when PHP’s veterans retire?"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/who-will-maintain-the-web-when-php-s-veterans-retire--a4hytpoqs
source_url: https://thenewstack.io/php-web-skills-hiring-age/
type: article
source: "The New Stack"
published: 2026-04-16T19:00:41.693Z
updated: 2026-04-16T19:01:06.624Z
tags: ["php", "wordpress", "laravel", "technical-debt"]
reading_time: 6
upvotes: 60
comments: 21
language: en
---

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# Who will maintain the web when PHP’s veterans retire?

**[The New Stack](https://daily.dev/sources/newstack)** · 6 min read · 60 upvotes · 21 comments

## Summary

A Perforce 2026 PHP Landscape Report surveying over 700 developers reveals a growing skills gap in the PHP ecosystem: more than half of PHP developers have 15+ years of experience, while only 15% have five years or less. Hiring has become the top challenge for PHP team managers, with 24% citing lack of skilled personnel as a leading operational concern. Analysts warn this isn't just a PHP problem but an open source problem, compounded by AI-generated code creating silent technical debt without enough junior developers to manage it. Despite the talent crunch, PHP remains foundational — tied with JavaScript at 72% usage — powering millions of e-commerce sites, WordPress installations, and APIs, mostly at companies with fewer than 500 employees. Symfony and Laravel lead the framework landscape.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://thenewstack.io/php-web-skills-hiring-age/>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@astrootter** · 23 upvotes

> Keep calm, i'm still here for the next 20 years

**@ronaldroe** · 5 upvotes

> The younger people who are still inexplicably clinging to it. Don't worry. There will always be people for PHP. There's a reason PHP devs make less in general. They're still a dime a dozen, and that's not changing as long as the evangelists still exist

**@sam7work** · 5 upvotes

> Hiring has stopped bout 2 years ago , so , yeah, everyone still working on php projects is working on their own projects or doing something else for a living, it's not the lack of php developers, it's the total lack of jobs , never mind how many years of experience , there are no jobs

**@quenk** · 4 upvotes

> Junior becomes senior? That the lifecycle kekw

**@deondazy** · 3 upvotes

> I got this. PHP Forever!!!

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---

Tags: [#php](https://daily.dev/tags/php), [#wordpress](https://daily.dev/tags/wordpress), [#laravel](https://daily.dev/tags/laravel), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt)

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