So, you want to become a WordPress developer? That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while!

After all, WordPress powers over 40% of the web — and behind every great WordPress site and product is someone who knows how to build and manage it. Why shouldn’t it be you?

Now, where do you start?

Well, how about right here? This guide walks you through everything you need to begin developing with WordPress professionally. You’ll learn what WordPress developers actually do, how to gather the right tools, skills, and knowledge, and how to start building a career.

What is a WordPress developer?

A WordPress developer is someone who builds, customizes, contributes to, or maintains websites using the WordPress platform.

If that feels like a rather broad definition, it is. That’s because WordPress is a big ecosystem, and there are many different ways to work within it.

Types of WordPress developers

WordPress developers come in different flavors, depending on what they like to build and how they work. These are some of the most common types you’ll find:

• No-code/low-code site builders: Also sometimes called “WordPress implementers,” these kinds of developers use visual editors and existing themes, patterns, and plugins to create sites mostly using the WordPress user interface without writing custom code.
• Coding specialists: On the other end of the spectrum, developers with deep coding knowledge can build entire websites with custom design and functionality using different programming languages and advanced layout and design tools.
• Theme developers: Create the part that defines the visual design and layout of WordPress sites. You can build custom designs for specific clients or create themes as digital products for sale. Individual themes often focus on particular industries and use cases; making them requires both creativity, design knowledge, and technical chops.
• Plugin developers: Concentrate on extensions that add new features or integrations to a WordPress site. Plugin makers, too, can work directly for and with clients or build their own products and sell them online. This work involves less creativity and more logical thinking and programming skills.
• Technical/maintenance specialists: Handle security, updates, backups, performance, and day-to-day tasks for existing websites. Requires attention to detail and deep knowledge of where to do what in WordPress.
• WordPress core contributors: Help improve the WordPress software itself by submitting updates, patches, and new features to the open-source project for the benefit of everyone who uses it.

It’s up to you to decide what kind of WordPress developer you want to become. At the same time, you can wear more than one hat because skills in one role often carry over to others.

What WordPress developers do

Depending on your role, here are some of the core tasks you might handle:

• Frontend development: Means working on the visual elements of a website, like layout, fonts, colors, and all parts of the user experience. It often involves modifying existing themes or building custom ones. In WordPress, frontend work can involve the built-in Site Editor as well as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Backend development: Here, the focus is on server-side functionality; basically, everything that happens in the background of a WordPress website. Typical tasks include using PHP to customize theme functions, create plugins, or modify WordPress core features.
• Block development: This is a growing area focused on creating custom WordPress blocks using JavaScript. It’s essential for both theme and plugin work since most content elements in WordPress now work with blocks.
• Site management: Typical tasks include updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins, trying out new extensions, managing user accounts, doing design and content updates, or running speed tests and acting on the results. You may also do site migrations and deployments.
• eCommerce development: Involves setting up and customizing online stores. WooCommerce is a great example of this. You’ll handle product pages, checkout flows, shipping logic, and integrations with payment gateways.
• Contributing to WordPress core: You can do almost all of the activities above to help improve the WordPress core software as well.

Assembling your WordPress development toolkit

To become a WordPress developer, you need the right tools for the job. Here are great options to start with:

• WordPress Studio: Free local development tool that allows you to sign up and work on websites on your computer, sync them with your WordPress.com and Pressable account, share live previews with clients, and more.
• Text editor: WordPress development is almost impossible without a good code editor. Check out Atom, Brackets, or Sublime Text for starters.
• GitHub: A platform for version control and collaboration. It also offers a free plan.
• Browser developer tools: Use Chrome or Firefox dev tools to inspect website elements and understand and debug frontend code.
• FTP client: Allows you to access your server directly to upload or edit files. Popular free options are FileZilla, Cyberduck, and WinSCP.

Understanding WordPress basics

As a first step in your developer journey, you need to familiarize yourself with some basic WordPress concepts.

WordPress.org and WordPress.com

WordPress core is the open-source software that powers every site built with WordPress. You can download it at WordPress.org and use it free of charge. It includes all functionality and default features.

To run a WordPress website, you need hosting, meaning space on a web server.

There are different types of web hosting, from shared to managed hosting. The latter is what WordPress.com is—a hosting provider that lets you easily build WordPress-based websites while taking care of everything technical, like software updates, security, and performance.

Hosting your own or your clients’ websites on WordPress.com offers the following benefits:

• Unmetered bandwidth and traffic
• WordPress-optimized server setup
• 99.999% uptime
• Free SSL certificate
• Staging sites
• SSH, WP-CLI, and GitHub deployments
• Free domain for the first year
• Expert support

For more differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, check this detailed list.

WordPress admin

The heart of every WordPress site is the WordPress admin dashboard. It’s where you manage content, themes, plugins, and settings.

It goes without saying that, in order to develop with WordPress, you need to know this part inside and out—including how themes and plugins work.

For example, WordPress themes come in two varieties: classic (PHP and file-based) or block themes (built for the block-based Site Editor). Depending on the type you use for a project, the process of customizing it will differ.

In addition, plugins cover a wide range of functionality. They can add singular layout elements, as well as create entirely new content editing experiences. This, too, is something you need to familiarize yourself with.

WP-CLI—The WordPress command-line interface

Finally, WP-CLI lets you manage WordPress sites with terminal commands.

Pretty much anything you can do in WordPress admin (like install, activate, and update plugins, moderate comments, manage users and user roles, change site settings, etc.), you can do quicker and in bulk with WP-CLI.

Plus, it has some nifty features for developers, like running and testing PHP code or flushing website cache.

(As mentioned, WP-CLI is included on WordPress.com Business and Commerce plans. You can learn more about it here.)

How to learn WordPress development

With the basics covered, next you need to familiarize yourself with WordPress’s architecture and the programming languages that make up the platform.

1. Learn WordPress development fundamentals

A good starting point to dive deeper is the dedicated Beginner WordPress Developer course on WordPress.org.

It offers a structured path to learn how WordPress works behind the scenes, development best practices, introductions to block, plugin, and theme development, as well as important topics such as the WordPress REST API, multisite, debugging, and much more.

This is a great basis to start from and decide in which direction to take your studies next.

Another frequently recommended option is the course “Become a WordPress Developer” on Udemy.

2. Get familiar with HTML

HTML forms the backbone of all web pages. It defines basic layout elements and content like headings, paragraphs, images, and links.

Knowing it is essential for understanding how WordPress and all other websites render content. That’s especially if you plan to do frontend development or customize themes or blocks.

In addition, it’s a great first language for beginners: it’s easy to read and learn, as well as immediately applicable.

You can start learning HTML for free on Codecademy, Learn-HTML.org, or W3Schools.

3. Dive into CSS

While HTML controls site structure, CSS is responsible for how a website looks. Its role is to define colors, fonts, spacing, layouts, and more.

For example, CSS is responsible for making sure the website design adjusts to different screen sizes.

Again, if your goal is to do frontend work, you won’t excel without familiarizing yourself with this markup language. You can find great learning resources for it at Codecademy, W3Schools, as well as web.dev.

4. Consider learning JavaScript

As the third-most important frontend language, JavaScript’s main purpose is to make websites more interactive. For example, you can use it to create things like sliders, pop-ups, and dynamic animations.

It also plays a role in:

• Form submissions
• Connecting to third-party services like web analytics
• Real-time content updates (e.g., after user interaction)

In addition, JavaScript is important in modern WordPress development. The WordPress block editor is built with React (a JavaScript framework), and custom blocks require working with JavaScript as well.

If you want to dive into this topic, you can do so at Codecademy, Learn JavaScript, or MDN Web Docs.

5. Master PHP

PHP is the main WordPress backend language and what powers most of the platform. It generates frontend HTML and controls how content loads, templates work, and features behave.

Knowing PHP is crucial for plugin development, although not as important for themes as it used to be.

Want to add PHP to your developer toolbelt? Great resources are Learn PHP and the ever-present W3Schools and Codecademy.

6. Be familiar with MySQL

The last skill to consider learning when pursuing a career as a WordPress developer is MySQL. It powers the database system that’s the other half of every WordPress site (the first being the file system).

The database contains all pages and post content, settings, and user data, which is pulled during the rendering process.

MySQL is likely not something you’ll work with every day, but understanding it helps when troubleshooting problems or building complex features.

You can get your bearings in this language at W3Schools, the guide in the MySQL documentation, or at MySQL Tutorial.

7. Other skills to invest in

While the above is essential to start developing with WordPress, there are a whole host of supporting skills you should consider learning:

• Git and version control
• The WordPress REST API and APIs in general
• Headless WordPress
• JSON, especially to work with theme.json
• Accessibility
• Performance optimization
• SEO (e.g., to create optimized themes)
• UI, UX, and web design
• Soft skills like marketing and sales
• Project management

Please don’t feel overwhelmed or pressured by this list; it’s just an overview. You will pick up many of these skills naturally as you take on more projects and grow your experience.

Build your first WordPress website

Speaking of which, the best way to learn anything is to use it in real life. Therefore, if you want to get into WordPress development, your best bet is to start building websites. Doing it will solidify your understanding of WordPress and give you something concrete to learn with.

You have different options for doing so:

• Use the WordPress Playground to learn in a safe, browser-based environment with no setup required.
• Create a local development environment (e.g., with Studio) and practice there.
• Purchase hosting and build a live website.

For the best results, pick a manageable project, like a personal blog, a portfolio, or a small business site. This will help you focus on achieving something tangible rather than aimlessly experimenting

If you want to focus on designing rather than managing servers, security, performance, or updates, launch your site on WordPress.com. We also have a guided first-website course for this.

Start your career as a WordPress developer

Once you’ve built a few projects and gained some confidence, it’s time to start thinking about how to turn your skills into real-world opportunities. The first step is to decide what you want:

• Do you see yourself working for a company, joining an agency, or working freelance?
• What will be your niche? Frontend development for creative agencies? Perhaps you want to do eCommerce work for small businesses. Think about this both in terms of the technical area as well as the industry.

Once you’ve made these important decisions, an important tool to find employment is your WordPress development portfolio site. There, you can showcase your work, skills, and services to help you attract web design clients. Highlight completed projects, describe the role you played, and include testimonials if possible.

After that, start applying for jobs in places like:

• WordPress job board
• WPMayor
• Remote OK
• WeAreDevelopers
• LinkedIn
• Codeable

You can also join online communities (Slack groups, forums, Facebook groups) where WordPress work is shared and discussed.

Continue your WordPress development education

WordPress and the web are constantly evolving, and staying current is part of being a great developer. It helps you become faster and stronger, and to learn new techniques and tools so you can offer more services and ask for higher rates and salary.

Here’s how to continue your education:

• Explore the WordPress Codex to deepen your understanding of core functions and best practices.
• Read WordPress.com’s developer documentation for platform-specific tools, APIs, and features.
• Join or attend a local WordPress meetup group or WordCamps to connect with other developers.
• Hang out in WordPress Facebook groups and/or subreddits.
• Subscribe to the Dev and Deploy newsletter for monthly updates, tips, and tutorials.
• Follow the WordPress.com YouTube channel for video walkthroughs, dev talks, and quick tips.

Start your development journey now

Becoming a WordPress developer is more accessible than ever — even if you’re starting with zero coding experience. There are lots of free learning resources and tools out there. WordPress itself is free, too.

Explore the different areas of development to find the right fit for yourself. Grow your skills with personal projects and gather a portfolio as soon as possible. Soon, it’ll be time to get hired for your first job.

If you want some help with the technical aspects of running WordPress websites, go for WordPress.com.

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When the non-profit Net Literacy launched 20 years ago, it started with a simple but powerful idea: Empower those without Internet skills or resources to get online, with youth volunteers serving as teachers and ambassadors. Today, they have grown into a global nonprofit reaching over 250,000 people through digital inclusion and financial education while growing  into new areas, such as AI literacy.

However, sustaining that impact across generations requires more than passion; it needs digital permanence and peace of mind that their resources will always be available online. This is what inspired Net Literacy to become one of the first customers to adopt WordPress.com’s 100‑Year Plan.

“A number of things really appealed to us about the 100‑Year Plan,” Net Literacy founder and CEO Dan Kent says. “First of all, it provides us with a lot of simplification and certainty around our operations. As a nonprofit, we’re looking to provide services for multiple generations.” 

Planning for certainty

Nonprofits live in cycles of funding and change. As Kent (who founded Net Literacy when he was only 14 years old explains, “As a nonprofit, our fundraising definitely is cyclical […] so, to provide us the certainty and peace of mind for our operations, the 100‑Year Plan protects us from downside risks and ensures that we’re able to continue our mission […] remain on the Internet for anybody around the world to access.”

Net Literacy’s mission is to establish and maintain an open, long-term digital curriculum that will be available for generations. For that, they rely on a website that cannot be lost to expired domains or administrative lapses. According to Kent, “The 100‑Year Plan provides us peace of mind, ensuring that future generations of volunteers […] don’t have to worry about making sure that our resources are accessible for anybody around the world.”

Tools to match the legacy 

Net Literacy’s programs tackle long-term challenges like closing the digital divide and spreading AI literacy. “Organizations that solve really big, meaty problems will really value this 100‑Year Plan,” Kent says. “Particularly those […] tackling problems that aren’t easily solved in decades, and need to measure their impact in generations.” 

This isn’t just about hosting your website online with world-class open source software. It’s a promise that an organization’s digital presence is built to last and ready for anything. WordPress.com’s century-based products (which also includes 100-year domains) take a multi-layered approach that begins with a long-term investment model to endow the data, ensuring there will always be finances available to maintain the service. 

This is then combined with distributed cloud server infrastructure, time-machine like layered backups, seamless trust-account continuity, and integration with the Internet Archive, making the 100-Year Plan not just a hosting plan, but a digital legacy fortress. 

A trusted partnership backed by recognition

Net Literacy felt confident about the alignment between WordPress.com and their organizational goals. “WordPress.com has been around as long as we have,” Kent says. “That track record matters.” 

Their trust in WordPress.com was reinforced when the 100‑Year Plan and Domain were recognized by Actualidad Economíca as one of the “100 Best Ideas of 2025” — a prestigious Impact Leader Award that underscores its innovation in digital legacy infrastructure.

Building for the long haul — together

Kent’s vision is clear: change is inevitable, but mission continuity is essential. 

“The one thing that will be constant going forward is change […] things such as the 100‑Year Plan … will make sure that we have a lot more optionality and make sure that our mission continues into the future,” Kent says.

With both mission and medium secured, Net Literacy is ready for what comes next. Thanks to the 100‑Year Plan, their educational resources won’t vanish — they will endure.

Learn more about how to secure and future-proof your digital legacy with the 100-Year Plan and 100-Year Domain.

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iOS 26 brought some significant updates to Apple’s mobile operating system, and we’re keeping pace with updates of our own in the Jetpack mobile app. With the release of Jetpack app 26.4, we’re shipping three new features designed to save you time, eliminate friction, and improve your experience. Let’s dive into what’s new.

Improved Stats

The new Stats screen retains the original structure, but improves every single aspect of the experience — better design, better interactions and animations, new features, and new technology to power it.

A new line chart with comparison periods, hourly data, trend indicators for metrics, significant data points on charts, custom date ranges, engagement and newsletter metrics for posts, full customization — these are just some of the new features coming to Jetpack Stats on mobile.

The new experience can be enabled using the “more” menu on the current Stats screen and can be disabled at any time. Please, give it a try and let us know what you think using the “Send Feedback” option available in the same menu.

On-device intelligence

This year, Apple made it possible for apps like ours to utilize their on-device AI models, bringing intelligence features to our apps in a privacy-sensitive manner. We started by adding three powerful features for the app — excerpt generation, suggested tags, and post summarization.

The new features also arrive with a redesigned publishing experience that makes it easier to configure the post for publishing without missing any important details. With models running on-device, we are able to generate the suggestions pro-actively and at no-cost.

The new intelligence features require an iOS 26 device that supports Apple Intelligence and are initially only available in English, with more options coming later this year.

Liquid Glass

We’ve been hard at work to get our app up to speed with the latest Apple design and technology, including Liquid Glass — a new design language.

It elevated every single aspect of the experience, and especially in Reader, which is stunning. But it’s not just Reader — every part of the app was reviewed and updated to take the best advantage of Liquid Glass.

See what’s new in the app

We hope you enjoy these new features! If you’d like to try them, they are all currently available in the Jetpack mobile app. Upgrade or download it today for iOS or Android.

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Starting a new site in WordPress Studio just got faster: Blueprint support is now enabled in version 1.6.0. 

With Blueprints, you don’t have to start with an empty WordPress site; simply predefine your preferred setup once and reuse it. If your team relies on a standard scaffold, turn it into a Blueprint and keep every project consistent and efficient.

With Blueprints in Studio, you can create sites from your own custom Blueprint or pick from a curated set of Blueprints to get up and running quickly.

Here’s a brief demo of this new feature in action.

How Blueprints work in Studio

Blueprints are lightweight JSON “recipes” for WordPress sites. Instead of saving a full site copy, they tell Studio which versions, plugins, and settings to apply so you and your team can spin up the same environment anytime.

Other local development tools often rely on full-site snapshots, which can be large, hard to share, and locked to a single environment. Studio Blueprints, by contrast, are portable and declarative: a single JSON file can reproduce the same site setup on any machine, instantly. That makes them more flexible for teams, easier to keep in sync, and more powerful for testing and iteration.

Creating local sites from Blueprints is now incorporated into the standard new site creation flow within Studio. Studio runs on WordPress Playground, so if you’ve used Playground Blueprints before, you can use the same ones here or use one of our free featured Blueprints.

Once you have Studio installed on your computer, click the “Add site” button in the lower left corner. The following screen will appear.

Select “Start from a Blueprint,” and you will see a gallery of featured Blueprints and an option to choose your own custom Blueprint.

Studio currently includes three featured Blueprints:

• Quick Start: Sets up a local site that mirrors the WordPress.com Business plan so that you can build in a production-like environment
• Development: Optimized for theme and plugin development, with tools like Plugin Check and Create Block Theme preinstalled
• Commerce: Powered by WooCommerce and companion plugins, giving you a store-ready site out of the box

If a featured Blueprint fits your needs, select it and click Continue. To use your own Blueprint, click “Choose Blueprint file,” select the JSON file from your computer, and click Continue.

Next, name your site. You can access more options, such as WordPress and PHP version configuration, by opening “Advanced settings.” When you’re ready, click “Add site.”

Behind the scenes, Studio builds the site from whichever Blueprint you selected or added. This flow should feel familiar to adding a blank site in Studio.

Blueprint-enabled workflows

Blueprints bring speed and consistency to your workflow, whether you’re working solo or with a team.

They help you:

• Streamline repeatable setups: Create Blueprints for common site types (blog, portfolio, store). Start new projects in Studio with the right foundation and get straight to work.
• Keep teams aligned: Add a blueprint.json to your project’s GitHub repository, whether you are building a plugin, theme, or full site. It scaffolds the same environment every time, so teammates can start in minutes. Version control keeps changes reviewable and consistent.
• Simplify demos and testing: Launch Studio with the exact theme, plugins, and sample content you need. Reproduce bugs or confirm fixes with a reliable, repeatable setup.

The featured Blueprints in Studio are delivered through an API, so new ones appear in the app as soon as they’re published. After you’ve had a chance to try them, we’d love to hear how you’re using Blueprints and what additional options you’d find helpful. Share your feedback in the comments or on GitHub.

Ready to create your own? Start with the How to create custom Blueprints guide. If you already use WordPress Playground Blueprints, you can reuse them in Studio — there are just a few differences to keep in mind, which the guide covers.

What’s next for Studio?

Blueprint support and the featured Blueprints in this release are an initial step. We believe Blueprints will be a fundamental part of most Studio workflows, so additional enhancements will follow. We’re also exploring the possibility of a public Blueprint library on WordPress.com where you can create, store, and share your own.

In the meantime, the next focus areas are:  

• Advanced Studio CLI: Create Studio sites, and push or pull site content to and from production and staging, all from the command line. The first pieces have already landed.
• Streamlined site creation: This will make the process of creating live sites on WordPress.com from Studio, and pulling existing sites into Studio, much smoother. 
• Performance improvements: Upcoming enhancements in WordPress Playground will make Studio even faster and more responsive.

We also enabled GitHub Discussions in the Studio repository. It’s a place for open conversation about the future of Studio, tips and tricks, questions, and more. It complements issues and pull requests. You’ll see me and the product team active there, and we hope you’ll join us.

Finally, if you haven’t tried Studio yet, or it’s been a while, now’s a great time to jump in. It’s free, open source, and improving rapidly.

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