The Ukrainian IT market showed incredible growth in 2021. It was such a big surprise to learn numbers of SoftServe: 70% growth in personnel within a year. So we wrote an article about this. But such a trend appeared to be not unique for that specific company. The market has been growing very dynamically. The AIN.Capital editorial board studied those changes at the largest outsourcing companies in Ukraine.
The list below includes only export-oriented companies or so-called outsourcers. We didn’t consider product companies in purpose, although it is a large industry at the moment. AIN.Capital also didn’t include big Ukrainian R&D offices of international product companies in the rankings even though this part of the IT industry grew up as well. For example, EVOPlay would belong to TOP 5 if we unified the rankings: it already hired more specialists than Ciklum — over 3,500 people.
For this rankings, AIN.Capital surveyed the largest companies to get actual figures for 2021. Then, we compared it with the rankings of DOU for winter 2021. We considered only local companies, excluding offices of international companies. That’s why, for instance, SoftServe, with total personnel of over 12,500 people, has a 1,000 less number on the list. The only company that refused to give figures was Grid Dynamics. In the first half of 2021, they reported about 1,000 workers, but according to the summer DOU rankings, this number is 1,249 specialists. There was no news about discharges at Grid Dynamics, so we used precisely that number in our study.
The list confirms that the hierarchy of Ukrainian outsourcing companies hasn’t changed — EPAM, SoftServe, GlobalLogic, Luxoft, and Ciklum. Only SoftServe is 100% Ukrainian; the rest are international or subsidiaries of big holdings. However, you can freely buy shares of EPAM, GlobalLogic (Hitachi), and Luxoft (DXC Technology) on stock exchanges and become their stakeholders. If we were making a general list, 5th place would be taken by EVOPlay with its 3,500+ employees in Ukraine: it has grown by 1,404 persons over the year.
To imagine this growth, you may simply compare the following: TOP 5 companies had in winter 2020 about 27,000 specialists altogether. Today the TOP 2 companies have the same number of employees, and five leaders grew to 40,000. It means 50% growth.
Most importantly, all companies plan to continue to grow. That means they have thousands of open positions right now. For example, SoftServe states that it plans to grow by another 4,000 people in Ukraine and globally in 2022. NIX plans to hire 2,000 people in a year. Currently, there are over a thousand job openings at EPAM, SoftServe, and GlobalLogic.
An important thing here is that Ukrainian companies have started their expansion in new regions. In 2021, the Ukraine-largest outsourcer — EPAM — announced opening a branch in Odesa and offices in Kherson and Khmelnytsky. Four new locations have been reported by SoftServe. Intellias also planned to open an office in Dnipro, its 6th R&D office in Ukraine.
Along with new locations, companies are making plans to increase the number of employees. If some representatives of Ukrainian IT announce their intentions to attract hundreds of additional specialists, then the top 5 largest companies talk about thousands of new team members. In 2022, most of them plan to continue their strategy of entering new regions of Ukraine.
The IT industry in Ukraine enjoys dynamic growth, and the pandemic just accelerated this process. According to the IT Ukraine study, the export revenue for 2021 was $6.8 billion, compared to $5 billion in the previous year, and nobody forecast growth of over 20%. And it continues: IT businesses hire more specialists, get more clients, and attract them to Ukraine. For example, the French fintech Qonto creates a team in Ukraine supported by local WeSoftYou.
The biggest obstacle here is, without doubt, the politics of our Eastern neighbor country. The escalation of the situation with Russia leads to planning for the case of war instead of strategic development planning. Even a small potential risk of that results in changed decisions of customers that tend to outsource their projects in other countries than in Ukraine.
But things like the overheated market and different legal initiatives from the government are much less critical and easier to solve for the industry.
You can find professionals to expand your teams by posting job openings on Recruitika. It’s easy and absolutely free. Or look for new employees in the Candidates section, where new resumes are posted daily.
