The AIN.Capital editorial staff has interviewed the largest Ukrainian outsourcing companies about the number of employees. They have provided up-to-date figures as of November, which we compared with last year’s ranking. As a reminder, in 2021, it included 15 companies, a list that reflected the industry’s incredible growth despite the coronavirus pandemic.
In the latest ranking, we considered only the size of companies in Ukraine, while international offices were not taken into account. However, it should also be noted that many employees from Ukrainian representative offices are currently working in foreign ones, which affects the number of specialists in local teams.
With the full-scale invasion, companies also focused on opening new offices abroad. Ukrainians might also work there. For example, GlobalLogic has opened a development center in Mexico, ELEKS has an office in Croatia, Sigma Software has an office in Prague, and Intellias has opened a representative office in Spain and Portugal. Most outsourcers have relocated to Poland, with N-iX, Grid Dynamics, GlobalLogic, and ELEKS opening offices there. Turkey and Latin American countries share second place.
In addition, in 2022, the companies established offices in western Ukraine. Thus, the most popular cities are Lviv (Luxoft), Ivano-Frankivsk (Luxoft, N-iX), Chernivtsi (Luxoft, Sigma Software), Uzhhorod (almost all those who have not yet had one). And Uzhhorod itself was included in the list of major IT hubs.
It should be noted that NIX Solutions, which in 2021 ranked fifth with a team of 3,693 people, refused to participate in this year’s AIN.Capital survey. For comparison, we used the data from the July 2022 rating of the largest companies in Ukraine compiled by DOU. Astound Commerce, which last year reported 976 local team members, also did not provide its figures.
Ranking of outsourcing and service IT companies by the number of employees
Overall, as can be seen from the ranking, the situation in Ukraine has had a significant impact on the listed companies. The top five companies recorded either a decrease in the number of employees or a stable number of employees, such as Luxoft. As reported to AIN.Capital by EPAM, which had 15% fewer specialists in its Ukrainian staff in November compared to December last year, more than a quarter of those who left the country at the beginning of the war have already returned. Nevertheless, a certain number of them see their immediate future abroad:
“Compared to the previous year, the number of specialists cooperating with ERAM has decreased. However, there is a reasonable explanation for this. After all, several thousand of our specialists left Ukraine to escape the war. More than a quarter of them have already returned home, but some see their immediate future in other countries. After completing the permitted 90-day stay in Europe, we have observed active relocation processes within the company for several months. Thanks to a large number of EPAM offices worldwide, specialists can work in the countries of their choice and receive support from the company and local peers. Currently, the relocation is the key reason for the change in the size of the Ukrainian team.”
According to SoftServe, 2,000 people have relocated abroad. Some of them have returned, but a significant number of people remain there and are being legalized in other SoftServe locations. In this case, they cease to be employees of SoftServe Ukraine.
“There is also the phenomenon of staff turnover, which is natural for the company this year, but due to the slower pace of hiring and the number of vacancies on the market, the number of employees does not level off as quickly. In addition, we do have some optimization going on, but it is not of a pronounced widespread nature. We maintain a talent pool sufficient to launch new projects and open new vacancies quickly. Most of them are focused on the internal pool, but we also open vacancies for external staffing. We are actively working to attract new customers and projects in Ukraine,” added Anastasia Frolova, Country Manager Ukraine, SoftServe.
Ciklum also noted that many Ukrainian specialists have left and switched to local contracts in the delivery centers of Poland and Bulgaria. The Ukrainian office of the latter employs 2,800 people, which is 14% less than last year.
Number of specialists in top 3 IT companies
Although half of the companies did not show an increase in employees, the other ten reported an increase in their Ukrainian teams. Among them are Intellias with an increase of 11% (54.5% last year), N-iX with +10% (42.3%), and Grid Dynamics with an increase of 21% (24.9%). At the same time, Avenga (formerly CoreValue) reported 727 specialists, which is 107% more than last year.
As Avenga explained to AIN.Capital, the company’s growth is mainly driven by the M&A program and the company’s presence in other countries. In addition, the offices in Ukraine operate in a self-sufficient manner, regardless of power outages. Thus, according to Avenga, clients receive services, and the team has the opportunity to work.
“We are establishing our presence not only in Europe, but also in South America (the recent merger with the Argentine company IncluIT gave us an increase of 800 people. Before that, the integration with Perfectial increased the Ukrainian team by 500 specialists. We also have good growth in existing customers, even during the war we did not lose any of them. Analyzing the last three years, which were quite difficult for the world, we did not have mass layoffs, salary cuts, or other drastic measures; our attrition was on average 15-18% when the market had already reached 30%,” said Marta Romaniak, Managing Director at Avenga.
It is a good sign that all the companies in the ranking continue to hire specialists. Although growth is not as rapid as it was a year ago, the availability of vacancies may indicate a step-by-step recovery of the industry. For example, SoftServe plans to hire additional 764 specialists globally in the near future, with 239 vacancies open in Ukraine. At the same time, EPAM notes that there is no massive hiring at the moment, and the need for specialists is mainly covered by the company’s internal talents. In November 2022, they were mainly looking for niche specialists, such as Performance Analyst, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Big Data, Python, etc.
Number of specialists & number of vacancies
Grid Dynamics has the most vacancies in Ukraine among the top twenty. In 2022, the company closed its offices in Russia and focused on scaling in Europe. As of December, it has about 1,600 specialists in Ukraine and plans to hire another 300 in the near future. GlobalLogic is also relatively active in hiring, with 279 vacancies open at the time of the survey. In their comment, the company noted that they are looking for specialists in various areas, including C++, .NET, Manual QA, Automation QA, Embedded QA, C/Embedded, Machine Learning, and Linux Kernel.