Web Development: A Portfolio Career Growing Faster Than Average

The short answer: web development is one of the few well-paid technical careers where employers routinely hire on demonstrated work. Federal projections have the occupation growing faster than average through 2035 — and every participant in our program graduates with live projects to show.

The numbers

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of $92,650 for web developers as of May 2025, within a broader combined occupational category (“web developers and digital designers”) that BLS tracks together for projections. The lowest-paid 10 percent of web developers earned less than $48,100, and the highest-paid 10 percent earned more than $162,290 — a wide spread that mostly tracks specialization, employer type, and years of experience rather than credentials. BLS projects employment of web developers and digital designers to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the 3 percent average projected for all occupations, with about 13,600 openings projected per year on average over the decade — most of those openings from workers changing occupations or leaving the labor force, not from net new positions alone.

On education, BLS is explicit that requirements “range from a high school diploma to a bachelor's degree” depending on the employer and the role, and that many employers weight a portfolio of working sites more heavily than a specific degree. That is the opening our program is built around: young adults without a four-year degree can still meet the bar employers actually apply, provided the work itself is real and demonstrable.

What the program covers

The Web Development track spends six months, at roughly 15–20 hours a week, building from fundamentals to shippable projects. In generic terms, participants work through:

• Front-end fundamentals — HTML for structure, CSS for layout and styling, and JavaScript for interactivity, with an emphasis on writing code that is readable and maintainable, not just code that runs.
• Responsive and accessible design — building pages that work correctly on a phone, tablet, and desktop, and that meet basic accessibility expectations (semantic markup, alt text, keyboard navigation, color contrast) that many client contracts and public-sector RFPs now require.
• Version control — using Git and a hosted repository (the kind of workflow used at essentially every professional dev shop) to track changes, collaborate, and avoid losing work.
• Working with a content management system and basic back-end concepts — enough understanding of how a site connects to data, forms, and hosting to be useful beyond a static page.
• AI-assisted development workflow — using current AI coding assistants as a tool for scaffolding, debugging, and speeding up routine work, while still being able to read, explain, and fix the code that comes out of them. Employers increasingly expect this fluency; BLS itself notes that improved AI tools may moderate future demand for some routine coding tasks, which is precisely why we teach the tools as an amplifier rather than treating them as optional.
• Portfolio construction and client-facing basics — assembling a body of real, live, deployed work, and learning how to scope a small project, communicate with a non-technical client, and price freelance work realistically.

Throughout, participants build actual websites — not toy exercises that get deleted at the end of a module — so a graduate's portfolio link, not just a certificate, is what they hand to an employer or client.

What the work looks like day to day

Day-to-day tasks in this occupation, per O*NET's occupational profile for web developers, commonly include writing and testing code for cross-browser and cross-device compatibility, planning the structure of a site with stakeholders before building it, integrating an e-commerce or content workflow into a site, and maintaining basic security practices for the systems involved. Our training mirrors that same rhythm: plan, build, test across devices, fix, document, and hand off — the habits that separate someone who can write code from someone an employer can actually put in front of a client's website.

Three realistic paths after the program

Graduates generally head in one of three directions: a junior or entry-level developer role inside a company or agency; freelance website work for small local businesses (often the fastest path to first income, since demand for a basic small-business site is constant and local); or, for a smaller number who want to go further, a small web-design service of their own once they have a track record. The freelance and self-employment paths pair naturally with our Marketing track — a graduate who can build a site and bring it traffic is worth more in the market than either skill alone — but self-employment is one optional branch among several, not the goal we train toward. As with every path we describe, we do not promise a job, a client, or an income figure; individual results vary based on effort, market conditions, and personal circumstances.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to already know how to code?
No. The program is designed for people starting from zero. It assumes comfort using a computer and a willingness to put in consistent hours, not prior programming experience.

Will I need to buy software or a specific computer?
The tools used in the track are free or have free tiers appropriate for a student portfolio. If equipment access is a barrier, tell us during the application — see the equipment note in how our programs work.

Is this the same as a coding bootcamp?
It shares some structure with a bootcamp (project-based, portfolio-focused) but is tuition-free, six months rather than a few weeks, paced at 15–20 hours a week so it can run alongside a job, and paired with a one-to-one mentor rather than a large cohort instructor.

What if I want to freelance instead of taking a job?
That is a legitimate path graduates pursue, and mentors help with client work during the program. It is one option among several, not a guarantee of income, and it takes longer for most people to reach reliable freelance income than to land a first job.

For employers and agencies

If you maintain client websites and need reliable junior build capacity, a mentored Azgari Foundation graduate is a no-fee hire with a live portfolio and a mentor still available for support during onboarding. Start a conversation.