Cost of Hiring software developers from Ukraine in 2024
1. INTRODUCTION
Different industries contribute differently to the development of the labor market, they create demand for this or that profession, or, on the contrary, push it to the background. If you're our reader, then it's the IT industry that's been on everyone's lips for the past decade. This topic is the key aspect of our blog. Well, the IT services market is very multi-faceted, and in each article, we try to consider each of its sides and each of its parts, we touch on and analyze global trends, offer you the most financially beneficial variant of hiring your team, and many other things you can already read in our blog.
Before we begin, it's worth noting that by touching on today's topic, you won't see a lot of statistics and numbers that already overwhelm our minds every day. Instead, let's have an easy, but interesting discussion about the current state of the IT market, about developers' salaries, and the icing on the cake - the cost of hiring developers in Ukraine.
Let's get started!
WHAT DOES THE CURRENT STATE OF THE IT MARKET TELL US?
Currently, we can see with the naked eye that the IT market around the world is moving from a volatile level of demand to a more sustainable level, ensuring that it all remains highly competitive. There are a few reasons why the IT market has all the qualities for a successful fixation: high wages, low price inflation for consumers, strong exports, and excellent innovation, which ensure a stable development of the field.
But this fixation also has its consequences - over the past year we have seen a trend in how the number of vacancies has fallen significantly, while competition in turn has increased. The reason for this is that companies have started to be more detailed in hiring developers for their teams. They want to see in their company a highly qualified, stress-resistant, communicative, and able to adapt quickly and easily to new conditions. After all, as the experience of 2019, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, shows, not everyone was able to adapt to the new work environment.
To understand what is happening now with the labor market in the IT industry, let's look at the most accessible example of the United States because you can see a pattern that what is happening in the United States after a certain period is also spread throughout Europe.
We can observe a tendency towards job cuts and mass layoffs which in most cases are caused by the losses incurred by the companies and the impossibility to pay proper wages to all employees. According to the forecasts of some experts, layoffs are only gaining momentum, because, in the first month of 2023, more workers were laid off than in any other month of 2022.
But don't jump to conclusions, because despite the massive layoffs, the employment rate in the U.S. technology industry is at a record high, and about 80% of workers who found a new job after being laid off got a new job within three months of the date of layoff.
TWO SIDES OF THE COIN: DEVELOPERS AND FINANCIAL STABILITY
Let's reflect on what is financial stability for every player in the IT market. First and foremost, it is the ability to find a job with a high enough salary to take care of three aspects of his life - past, present, and future. It is a kind of impetus, a motivation for the developer. Therefore, salary is important when choosing a site where he wants to provide his services.
If we are talking about the United States, the salary depends on many factors, such as experience with specific technologies, specialty, seniority, and so on. But if we talk about the range, a developer can earn from $100,000 to $220,000 in a year. These figures are very impressive because according to the standards of living in the United States, this is more than enough to ensure financial stability, not considering the human factor.
As for salary figures in Ukraine, they are noticeably lower than in the USA, but it is quite satisfying to be financially stable relative to the standard of living in Ukraine. If you briefly run through the statistics sites, you can see a tendency for the average wage to rise one way or another every year.
If you dig a little deeper into the numbers, for the December 2022 data, the salary range for the Ukrainian IT labor market is from $1,600 to $8,000 per quarter. As noted earlier, the figures are lower than in the United States, and in Europe as a whole, but this opens new opportunities for customers who would like to hire their own team of developers while maintaining their financial capital.
But value for money isn't the only attractive aspect that employers value so much. What else let’s get to the next section.
TWO SIDES OF THE COIN: THE CUSTOMER AND HIS THREE MAIN TENETS
Let us not forget that there are always two players on the market - the one who hires and the one who employs. From the previous section, we understood that the main aspect for the developers is the financial stability - the salary, but what do the customers who want to hire a developer for their team/company value?
Despite the trend of shrinking vacancies, the fact that companies need highly qualified personnel remains the same. Let's highlight three main phrases - postulates that businesspeople want to hear when placing their team in another country or hiring developers: lower employee salaries, lower resource prices, and lower taxes.
Many employers wonder where to open or locate their office and hire developers so that it will not cause overall damage to their business. After all, in addition to the wages to be paid to developers, you still need to take care of renting space, placing all the necessary equipment, and calculating the taxes that will go to the country's public sector.
In case of the wrong legal approach and of course, choosing the wrong country to place his team or open an office there, the businessman endangers his capital. For example, by choosing a country with low foreign investment and high VAT, or by not taking into consideration the seemingly simple but important factor of rent costs, the team manager endangers not only his company's capital but also the future salaries of his developers.
But the big question remains - "Where?"
«YOU MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE!»
Information technology is developing faster than other industries, and in modern IT projects even experienced developers constantly need new knowledge, let alone newcomers. This imposes high requirements for education and advanced training of IT engineers. As for education in Ukraine, the future programmer is provided with everything he needs to get higher education, as well as to take advanced training courses if he wishes. Thus, the Ukrainian IT market is fully armed with skilled professionals and staff, and is not inferior to American developers, which cannot be said about the level of wages.
As we have already mentioned at the beginning of the article, hiring Ukrainian developers is much more financially rewarding than in any other country in the U.S. or Europe, which is directly related to the level of wages. At the beginning of this article, we made an analogy and compared the salary of a developer from the USA and from Ukraine. The reason for such a huge difference in the first place is a lower cost of living than in the rest of Europe and the United States. But this does not mean that cheaper is worse. Developed infrastructure, modern high-rises overlooking the entire city, all of this is also present, and no worse than in any other European country. The only difference is the price.
For example, renting a one-room apartment will cost $500-800 per month. If you want to rent an apartment outside the city center, it will cost you a little cheaper - about $300-500 a month. By comparison, renting in the USA is 2-3 times more expensive. As a center for hosting your team, we suggest looking primarily at the capital- Kyiv, where about 40% of Ukrainian IT professionals live.
As for taxes, you must understand that you won't be able to pay them at all. But there is a way to minimize them if you approach this issue from the legal side.
CONCLUSION
Summing up, we can say that Ukraine is now one of the best places to hire developers and build your team because of its cost-effectiveness, popularity, and prospects. Indeed, even today the borders with Europe are becoming less visible, which may soon affect the flow of European investors in the direction of Ukraine.
In general, the market for IT services continues to grow and develop, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find qualified specialists in this field. But if you are looking for a profitable solution for your company, hiring developers in Ukraine can be a great option now and a good investment for the future.
We hope that this article was easy and useful for you, and we have managed to disclose this topic one hundred percent, without using a huge number of statistics.
We'd love to see feedback. See you again soon!
If you have any questions or have an idea about hiring a team of professional developers in Ukraine, we would be glad to fuel your business idea with our services: contact.us@gointeractive.co
