[danielstudds]

There's definitely demand, and you should be able to get decent wedge if you're any good at it. The reason why there's a race to the bottom on freelance sites is precisely because there's demand: a large number of people who are just in it for the money, rather than a love of programming, choose java because it's popular.

To get your day rate up, though, you're going to have to build up your own network, so that you're not competing against everyone else on the freelance sites. Check out Brennan Dunn's books/blog/email list. [1][2]

If you're good and get the right connections, you should be able to get up towards that $100/hr mark. To get beyond that, you really need to be able to point to a bank account and say, "because of me, there's more money there." See patio11 [3]. At that point, language is far less relevant - and in fact, I'd hazard a guess that Java is a particularly difficult language to do that with (because it tends to be more backend rather than front-end, but that's an unsubstantiated gut feel.)

[1] http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ [2] http://brennandunn.com/ [3] https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consultin...