FileMaker Trends

Is the FileMaker "world" growing?

FileMaker Inc. state only that the total number of units shipped is "more than 20 million units of FileMaker client software delivered, including over 800,000 downloads of FileMaker Go", and that they have "shipped more than a million software units" in each of their last two fiscal years (this statement has not yet been updated since March 2011). FileMaker's parent, Apple, does not disclose any figures for FileMaker in it's public finacial reports. There is the Google Trends information for FileMaker showing a seemingly ineluctable decline in interest… but this is, to a degree, misleading: trends for MySQL, PHP and database show a similar, if possibly gentler, downward slope.

Below are charts of the number of consultants listed on the FileMaker Web site and also the number of jobs available on the FileMaker Job Board. The overall numbers may or may not be interesting, and there will be short term fluctuations, but it seems possible that over time both of these may serve as proxies for the growth of the FileMaker market. It's important not to read too much into these numbers: there are reasons why they may change that are independent from the size of the FileMaker market changing.

The charts are updated daily and a file CSV file containing the raw data is available. For comments, questions or suggestions please use the contact form.

FBA Locations

The number of consultants, offices of FBA members, listed in the FileMaker Consultant Search.

Notes

The value charted prior to September 22, 2011 is the number of offices, not the number of FBA members. An estimate for the number of members, as opposed to locations, prior to that date is included to give a better indication of the trend.
Not all FBA members are listed in the consultant search. FileMaker give a total of "more than 1200".
The chart does not take account of the size of FBA members' business. It's possible that the number of developers employed by FBA members may be rising or falling independent to the number of FBA members.

FileMaker Jobs Listed

The number of jobs listed on the site FileMaker Job Board

Notes

On a small number of days it was not possible to obtain the count of jobs available, on those days, for the purposes of the graph, the value for the previous day is used.
The listing does not distinguish between full and part time, permanent and contract, or make any effort to check if jobs are appearing in both listings.
There is at least one other listings of FileMaker jobs at Find FileMaker Developers, however, there does not appear to be a way to obtain a meaningful count of current openings.

Thanks

Thanks to Nunz Gambale of Bearcage, Nick Orr of Goya, Kent Lendrum of Kamar and Samuel Toombs of screenrights for their constructive criticism on the first version of this article.

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