All you need to know about Ukrainian IT Industry in 2021
In the first part of 2020, we all experienced the global economic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the annual growth of the Ukrainian IT industry fell from 30% to 24%. However, it quickly regained its position against all the odds.
The first reason for the rapid recovery of the Ukrainian IT industry is growing demand because organizations around the world are facing a new challenge. They need to renew and optimize their businesses to answer on changing customer requirements. For that reason, almost every company has migrated online since the beginning of the pandemic.
The high quality of Ukrainian IT services is another reason for such a fast recovery. Local tech experts keep rational and competitive prices even with completely remote workflow, keeping up with the newest technologies and IT trends.
Now, the Ukrainian IT market has regained its previous positions. By the end of 2020, the export of IT services has grown to more than 5 billion USD, which is a record for the industry.
Ukrainian IT market: key statistics
Education level
First, let’s take a look at tendencies in Ukrainian higher IT education.
The number of new bachelors in tech specialties is stable for the last five years and around 16.2 thousand students per year. Even with growing interest in the IT-related professions, the number of new experts is not increasing rapidly. The reason is in a low amount of all graduates in the country that dropped down to 191 thousand in 2020. For comparison, in 2016 this number was — 21% higher.
However, the share of IT experts among all bachelors is generally increasing with an average growth rate of 1.9%. In 2020, it was over 8.5% of graduates. These two factors assure a stable number of graduates in the nearest future.
As for now, students can gain practical skills while studying thanks to internship opportunities from various IT companies. In addition, in 2020, the IT department of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy merged with the EASE association, so we can say that Ukrainian specialists get strong practice inside the industry.
Main markets of Ukrainian IT services
The main markets of IT export are the United States and Western Europe together with Great Britain. But still, the USA is Ukraine’s largest R&D partner. Though, the map of Ukraine’s main markets tends to expand and be more varied in years to come.
Export of IT services is growing along with the revenue industry receives each year.
Technologies knowledge
According to Coursera and its Global Skills report for 2021, Ukraine is in 7th place among all countries in the level of Technology knowledge. Furthermore, in Europe, Ukrainian IT experts are among the best in Technology and Data Science.
Talking about Data Science knowledge, the Ukrainian IT industry is in the top 20 among other European countries.
But what technologies stack software developers are using the most for now? In 2021, JavaScript became the leading language, Java is in second place among developers, and C# is the third one by its popularity.
The top used frameworks are React.js, Node.js, Angular.js, .NET, and Spring.
The Ukrainian IT industry is providing software mostly for eCommerce, Enterprise, and Finance industries. However, Education and Healthcare are also in the focus.
Ukrainian IT industry — number of specialists
The total numbers of IT experts in Ukraine range from 200 000 to 220 000 in different sources. The largest part of specialists lives in cities where the biggest IT schools are located. These are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa.
The majority of specialists live in Kyiv and have the highest average salaries in the country. Plus, Kyiv ranks 86th in the world in cost of living (for example, New York ranks 4th).
Source: Beetroot
Conclusions
The rapid growth of the industry during the last 5 years and successful overcoming of the pandemic crisis shows that the Ukrainian IT market is now stronger than ever before and can provide a wide range of services.
Ukrainian specialists built up a reputation of reliable professionals who are keen on implementing the latest technologies and caring about their clients’ business needs.
If you need trustworthy partners with a long practice in the market, contact us to find out more details.
