The recent three years were a time when the Ukrainian IT market saw its peak and ever-deepest recession in the history of Ukraine’s independence, in particular as a result of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Still, the industry remains most promising in Ukraine despite many actors saying it’s “the end of a fairy tale” and nobody expects large profits anymore.

The Analytics Department of AIN conducted a study on the crises that impacted the Ukrainian IT market in the last ten years, IT business reactions to those crises, and salary dynamics.

A Labor Force Shortage in 2014 and the Russo-Ukrainian War

Before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian IT service export grew by 40% annually. This growth slowed down to +8% only in 2009 because of the world financial crisis.

In January 2011, Serhiy Tihipko, then Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, reported that the Ukrainian software exports doubled (according to him, the export volume reached almost $1 billion in 2011) and emphasized the importance of state support for the IT industry, which “could become a drive of the national economy development.”

According to Ciklum and the Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative, the Ukrainian software development and IT outsourcing market exceeded $1.1 billion in 2011. At that time, over 90% of companies preferred to operate in international markets.

In early 2014, Volodymyr Semynozhenko, the Director of the State Agency for Science, Innovation, and Informatization, reported a workforce shortage in the IT market—100,000 for exports of IT services and about 70,000 for domestic demand.

“To speed up solving these issues, we must expand IT specialist education programs, primarily in the regions where a quick and remarkable employment increase is expected: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk (now, it’s Dnipro), Odesa, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea,” Semynozhenko explained.

But soon, in February 2014, Russia began a war against Ukraine, and it was the first point of no return for Ukrainian IT companies and specialists in the following ten years. During the first year of the war, the Ukrainian IT market shrunk by 54%, according to the study of IDC and DeNovo, after the occupation of Crimea and several districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The millionaire city of Donetsk was often mentioned in DOU salary surveys before 2014. So, in December 2011, the highest nationwide relative wage increase was recorded for the Donetsk developers with over one year of experience.

In 2014, IT companies and professionals started to leave the city occupied by Russia: over 1,000 specialists left Donetsk within only a few months. Before the invasion, according to DOU data, about 3,000 to 4,000 IT specialists worked in the city. Based on the IT Ukraine Association and BRDO calculations, 13.8% of specialists left Ukraine between 2014 and 2015.

However, a year later, in 2016, according to DOU, the IT industry was growing again: +11% in 2015 and +30% in 2019.

A Manual QA with nine years of experience, Andriy (the name changed upon our interviewee’s request), said AIN that in 2015, trainees got $250-300 on average, and juniors $300-400 (when the exchange rate was about ₴22).

After two months in the profession, he grew from a Trainee to a Junior Specialist, and his salary increased from $300 to $600.

“As a bonus (of a training course I attended then), we met with an HR specialist from one famous IT company who offered students a ‘test’ interview with its colleagues. I had great English, and she invited me for a real interview, after which I started my three-month probation period with $300 a month. In two months, I became a Junior and started earning $600,” Andriy told AIN.

The Market in 2020-2021: More Hires, More Opportunities for Newcomers, and Raise of Salaries

Despite the labor market stabilization, IT companies faced other problems: an unstable situation because of the war with Russia and demand for high-quality education.

The market continued to grow. The highest hiring season happened during the COVID pandemic: +20% in 2020 and +38% in 2021. Despite remote work becoming a must during the pandemic, companies and their employees adapted to the new reality fast.

“In 2020 and 2021, we had a lot of hiring. Speaking of all our units and R&D centers, we could hire about 400-500 people per month on average,” Senior Talent Operations Manager at SoftServe, Oleksandra Tolokh, told AIN.

A study by CNA International IT showed a stable growing demand for Ukrainian IT specialists since Q4 2020. At that time, companies required more workforce than the market could offer.

According to Oleksandra Tolokh, there were indeed more opportunities for IT newbies in 2020 and 2021 due to higher demand from customers and businesses. However, the entry threshold remained the same: “We have our job standards that are checked several times during an interview, internally, and in communication with a customer. Candidates must meet those standards because we don’t want to lose the quality of services and solutions we provide to our customers.”

For example, a Full Stack Developer, Mark (name changed upon our interviewee’s request), got his first job in a small outstaff company while the market was growing — in September 2021. The search took him two months. The company offered him $400 during a two-month probation period and $500 after its end.

“It was my first interview about software development, and I was positively surprised with an offer,” he remembers. “Straight away, I was offered the same money I was earning at my previous job for several years already.”

They also fixed salary increases for different levels of qualification: 20-25% on the Junior Level, 50-100% on the Middle Level, and 30-50% on the Senior Level.

  • In 2020, the average developer salary in Ukraine was about $2,300 after taxes, DOU reported.

  • At the end of 2021, the salaries of Ukrainian developers became more competitive than in Poland. According to NV Business, IT specialist salaries in Ukraine started at $1,500 for a Junior Software Engineer and $4,000 for a Team Lead and a Senior Software Engineer, while being the same or lower in Poland.

  • A salary survey by DOU indicated that 18% of IT professionals earned over $5,000.

2022-2023: The Recession, Fewer Vacancies, and a Slow Recovery

After reaching its peak in 2021, the forecast growth changed for a disaster after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine manifested in the ever-lowest growth — +5.9%.

At the beginning of 2022, the number of vacancies on Work.ua in the category “ІТ, Computers, and Internet” fell from 9,887 to only 1,363. According to the Work.ua CMS data, the number of job offers decreased ten times.

Six months later, in September 2022, it increased to 4,909 but then continued its fall. Work.ua connected this trend with blackouts because Russia shelled the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Some big companies had to reduce their costs due to the full-scale war, at least temporarily. “To save our team and avoid dismissals in 2022, we decided to cut remunerations temporarily by up to 20%. However, we returned 100% wages in the summer of 2022 plus indexation,” said Daria Kruzhylina, Head of Recruitment at Uklon.

The companies also did their best to create safe work environments for their employees. “After the full-scale Russian invasion, the company built a factory in a safer region of Ukraine, created new jobs, and relocated many employees there,” the Ajax Systems press department stated in a commentary for AIN. They restored the supply chain in three weeks and the usual production cycle after another five weeks.

As of June 2023, the category “ІТ, Computers, and Internet” got 57% of its pre-war numbers. It is a slow recovery compared to other industries (i.e., “Medicine & Pharma,” “Security & Safety,” and “Telecommunication and Communication”): Work.ua admitted a 90% restoration of the labor market in the second full-scale war year.

In parallel, Djinni reported a decrease in new IT vacancies by the end of 2023: In July, there were over 18,500 job offers, and in December, only about 12,300.

The largest Ukrainian IT businesses also admitted they needed fewer new employees. EPAM connected this tendency with war-related challenges and slower world economic development.

“Last year, we changed our hiring procedures as the market demanded and covered our need for talents using our reserve experts temporarily involved on a project basis,” the Vice President, Country Head of EPAM Ukraine, Stepan Mitish, reported AIN.

Many IT specialists also noted a decrease in job offers. “I subscribed for the Djinni vacancy bot, and now, the offers come in waves: sometimes I receive something new every day, but there can also be weeks without any news,” Full Stack Developer Mark added.

These hiring approach changes also influenced the salaries. According to Djinni, there is a drop of $200-500. According to DOU data, the number of specialists paid $2,000 to $5,000 decreased (44% in 2022-2023 against 47% in 2021). Instead, the number of professionals earning under $2,000 increased to 37% in 2022-2023 compared to 34% in 2021.

The Most Wanted Specialists and Their Salaries in 2024

“Today, the most wanted are high-profile niche competencies related to AI. However, it doesn’t mean other professions are less significant. Speaking of Juniors, we hire Python engineers, .NET developers, and QA — both Manual and QA Automation,” said Oleksandra Tolokh, Senior Talent Operations Manager at SoftServe.

Uklon HRs pay special attention to the soft skills of candidates. “Developed emotional intelligence is a key to winning great specialists and managers. For sure, soft skills will prevail over hard skills, and the idea that anyone can learn technical skills, but only a few, the soft ones, will long remain essential not only in Ukraine but in the global labor market,” Daria Kruzhylina, Head of Recruitment at Uklon, summarized with certainty.

The Ajax Systems press center mentioned a higher demand for R&D specialists.

“The most wanted are Embedded and Hardware. We also see a positive dynamic in other directions, such as Business Teams and Production.”

Cybersecurity, Cloud Technologies, and Artificial Intelligence are the domains where mainly Senior+ Level specialists needed, the EPAM representative added. “Now, we are hiring Data, Cloud, Python and .NET specialists,” VP, Country Head at EPAM Ukraine, Stepan Mitish explained.

The large Ukrainian companies we surveyed refused to name precise salary numbers. The 2024 statistics of job websites and IT specialist surveys say that

Opportunities and Salaries for Trainees/Juniors in 2024

Despite uncomfortable market conditions and fewer vacancies, big sharks still hire people without or with minimal work experience. Usually, it is graduates of some special programs or training courses of that very company.

“In the first six months of 2024, for almost 67% of vacancies for newbies, we hired the graduates of our Academy or other educational solutions, such as our joint education programs with universities,” Oleksandra Tolokh told AIN.

She reported more candidates available than in 2020-2021. “For example, our cooperation with universities in different formats lasted many years already. In 2019, we launched joint Bachelor programs with universities. And now, the graduates come to us.”

Most large Ukrainian IT companies have programs for IT newcomers. For example, Ajax Systems has its Ajax Next program for candidates without an IT background. 

“Together with higher education entities, we realize the programs that combine project work and mentorship from our engineers. Ajax Systems offers the students who successfully finished our programs a job,” the Ajax Systems press center informed.

According to DOU data for June 2024, there are the following offers for specialists without an IT background:

Intern/Trainee Software Engineer

$338 median

Junior Software Engineer

$935 median

Intern/Trainee QA

$363 median

Junior QA

$800 median

Junior DevOps

$1300 median

Junior HTML Coder

$850 median

Junior Data Scientist

$800 median

Junior Machine Learning Engineer

$950 median

Junior Data Analyst

$900 median
 

 

The Head of Recruitment at Uklon, Daria Kruzhylina, thinks that Ukraine will need such specialists in the future no matter what experience they have, if any.

She says businesses already suffer workforce shortages, and that will be only worse, “If before the full-scale war, hiring a Junior or a Trainee was a routine, we will see soon how essential it will become for both employers and candidates.”

Some IT specialists are not so positive about the future of IT. Andriy believes almost any IT professional would suffer nowadays to find a job, “We all improved our English, so there is no problem to find a decent substitute for any possible position.”

He thinks that the accessibility of education has its pros and contras,

“Those ‘rich IT guy’ clichés, accessible online education, and dedicated universities created tons of newcomers in IT. On the one hand, it led to a kind of dumping in the market; on the other hand, experienced specialists got a chance to be promoted to mentor of the youth to share their knowledge and experience.”

There are also plenty of optimists. Mark admits his salary increased several times over the last three years (without naming precise numbers, however). But Andriy says his wage was only corrected by indexation in 2022-2024. “In general, prices were growing faster than the USD exchange rate. So the company added some $50 to all employees’ salaries a few times.”

One More News: Veteran Employment in Ukrainian IT

As the full-scale war began, Ukrainian IT companies started providing veterans with opportunities to get a new profession.

There are:

  • free Project Management, Business Analyst, PPC, and ASO courses by the Choiсe31 Online University (Netpeak Group);

  • the IT for Veterans program by EPAM;

  • free video lessons from ITVDN, etc.

In addition to the courses above, the companies also try to adapt to the needs of veterans who are new in the profession or coming back from war.

One of them is Ivan Durskyi, a Service Desk Analyst at SoftServe. He retired from the army after getting sight problems after an injury.

“At SoftServe, they keep the positions for the time their employee serves in the army,” Ivan explained. “I know some veteran colleagues who have reskilled and changed their projects. The company helps people with new projects and education opportunities so that the veterans can find a job.”

As of July 2024, SoftServe employs 60 veterans, said the SoftServe Corporate Reputation & CSR Director, Mariia Kucherenko. Since the big war started, over 390 employees of SoftServe were mobilized to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“SoftServe continues its financial support for the whole time of service. After the demobilization, the veterans can apply for additional vacations up to 30 days to adapt, rest, and spend time with their families.”

As part of the veteran program, the company provides two more weeks of annual vacation, extended health insurance with additional preventive examinations, training opportunities, and flexible work schedules.

Ukrainian IT companies also cooperate with NGOs that specifically work with veterans, such as Veteran Hub, the first open space for veterans in Ukraine established in 2018.

In 2023, the NGO representatives launched the Praktyka project to help companies implement veteran-friendly practices for those who return to civil life.

“We work with IT companies as consulting specialists within the Praktyka project and teach them how to prepare for veterans’ returning,” Veteran Hub informed.

Intellias, SoftServe, GlobalLogic, EPAM, and others collaborate with Veteran Hub.

“We asked the Veteran Hub guys to help us develop a program of veteran support and adaptation. They also taught our recruiters, HRs, and managers the basics of communication with veterans,” told Mariia Kucherenko.

“More and more companies wish to care for veterans actively. They create programs and amend their policies,” Ivan Durskyi added.

He says SoftServe has a community of veterans who exchange experiences, meet up, and do various activities. “For example, we made a seminar on the preparation for military service for our civilian colleagues.” 

According to Forbes, Ciklum, ELEKS, EPAM Ukraine, Intellias, and SoftServe are the biggest veteran employers. Work.ua even added a new search filter: “For Veterans”.

At the same time, according to a study by the Ukrainian Veteran Fund, about 31% of veterans remain unemployed in 2024. The actual military men and veterans find health issues, including mental conditions, no understanding among civilians, and having no skills or knowledge as reasons for this. 39.4% of 1,043 survey participants have concerns about finding a job.

Is IT Still a Good Industry with the Best Salaries?

Despite the lower salaries, IT remains one of the best-paid industries in Ukraine. According to the State Agency of Statistics, the average salary in the IT industry reached UAH 49,473 in 2024, which is 35.6% more than in 2023 (the average salary in the whole labor market of Ukraine is equal to UAH 19,553 as of July 2024).

On the top of the highest-paid positions on Work.ua is Golang Developer. Four of the five best-paid positions on Robota.ua are in the IT industry:

Only military jobs can compete with IT by salary level now. The Ministry of Economy reported that financial and insurance specialists are second best-paid professionals — UAH 39,116. After them come scientists and technicians (UAH 26,316) and public officers (UAH 23,376). The worst-paid are educational specialists (UAH 12,649 on average).

According to DOU, the median developer salary increased by $200 to $3,500 in the Summer of 2024. Increasing Tech Lead remunerations, fewer Junior Developers, and more Architects in product companies were among the main factors.

At the same time, experts have noticed a trend of salaries decreasing for developers of various titles and technologies: salaries in front-end development are falling more rapidly than in other specializations.