IT Outsourcing to Ukraine: Top 11 Reasons to Hire Ukrainian Companies

The Ukrainian IT industry is one of the most rapidly growing and dynamically developing spheres in the country. It’s often referred to as the driver of the local economy, so it’s little wonder that top IT outsourcing locations in Ukraine are skyrocketing as well. In 2020, the export of the Ukrainian IT industry increased by 20%, or $853 million. The share of computer-related services in the total export value is about 8,3%. 

Source: BRDO

Over the past 12 months, the number of Ukrainian IT specialists has increased by 16%. Besides, the country takes second place among the most innovative countries in the lower-middle-income group and 45th place in the overall ranking. Further, Ukraine is in first place among the most competitive countries in the Technology sector and ranked 4th on the list of technical skills among 60 countries.

The majority of Ukrainian talents, around 70%, boast an intermediate or upper-intermediate level of English proficiency. Also, there’s plenty of choice of specialists skilled in emerging technologies (IoT, AI, blockchain, data science, edge computing, etc.)

It’s no surprise that Amazon, Google, Oracle, Samsung, NetCracker, and Snap opted for Ukraine software outsourcing. And Qubit Labs is here to tell you about 10 main reasons why Ukraine IT outsourcing is flourishing. Also, we’ll explain why it’s a lucrative place for such software development heavyweights.

1. Ukraine is a large IT outsourcing market with over 210,000 IT specialists 

The local IT business continues to go from strength to strength despite all the challenges associated with the global crisis. In 2020, Ukraine’s IT sector’s annual export number hit the $5 billion mark for the first time. The reasons for such impressive growth are the following:

• The minimum red tape.
• The professionalism of local IT specialists.
• A stable industry-wide tax policy.

When it comes to IT outsourcing Ukraine, tech specialists prefer working as private entrepreneurs. Recent research on the number of registered PEs in Ukraine has shown that there are approximately 212,547 people working in the Ukrainian IT industry.

Speaking of the most popular programming languages in Ukraine, numbers are the following: JavaScript (18,1%), Java (14,7%), C# (14,3%), Python (12,1%), PHP (10,1%).

Referring to other IT specialists, Ukraine outsourcing allows for cooperating with skilled QA engineers, the average salary of which is $1,850 per month. Their rates are growing more rapidly than those of other tech specialists, having increased by 23% over half a year, while the overall industry growth is 18%.

The largest number of QA specialists accounts for the category of manual QA, 27%—for automation QA, 18%—for general QA, and 1%—for performance QA. 

As for the non-technical specialists, Ukraine IT outsourcing companies boast large pools of DevOps (including SRE, DBA, security), Data/Big Data engineers, product managers, web developers, business analysts, project managers, designers (including UI/UX, graphic, and product), and marketing (including CMO, SEO specialists, marketing/digital marketing managers, copywriters), HR, and support specialists.

Watch a quick overview of Ukrainian IT outsourcing market in our video from webinar:

2. An impressive number of IT outsourcing companies 

Ukraine boasts over 1,500 tech companies, 2,000 startups, and more than 110 international R&D centers. 

When focusing on top-50 Ukrainian tech companies, the number of specialists working there grows every half-year. The statistics say that during the second half of 2020, the number of tech professionals increased by 11,6% (or 7,930 specialists), which was a record level. And during the first half of 2021, this number grew by 12,7% (or 9,719 specialists), breaking the previous record. As of July 2021, more than 86,000 specialists work in the biggest Ukrainian IT companies.

Ukraine software outsourcing is requested among Fortune 500 companies. And the country is now home to more than 110 R&D centers for several global giants, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Skype, to name a few.

In addition, over 20 Ukrainian cities have established their local IT communities. An IT Ukraine Association is the largest group of local IT companies, including over 60 Ukraine technology development companies.

As per the mentioned association, the Ukrainian market is expected to grow by 20-30% each year, and the number of specialists is anticipated to double by 2024.

Despite the pandemic and the general economic downturn, Ukrainian startups have attracted a recording number of investments, namely $571 million. The country is home to over 2,000 startups, and the most well-known among them are Grammarly, Preply, Ajax, GitLab, and DepositPhotos.

The fastest-growing Ukrainian startup is Reface.io, the products of which have been downloaded over 70 million times within the last year.

On top of it all, 20 Ukrainian IT outsourcing companies got ranks in The Global Outsourcing 100. This ranking is the most credible source of information for the companies looking for a Ukraine IT outsourcing partner.  

3. Ukrainian talents are sought-after among global companies 

The number of IT graduates in Ukraine is around 36,000 annually. The major centers of IT education (and the largest local IT hubs) are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa. The largest tech universities are located in these cities, and they account for the education of 67% of IT graduates. You can check our guide about Ukraine IT outsourcing hubs to know more on this topic.

As per BRDO, the current projections indicate that Ukrainian universities are expected to start producing around 50,000 IT specialist graduates each year by 2024. Although this number is slightly lower than the anticipated industry requirement, convincing young Ukrainians to pursue a career in the IT sector isn’t that challenging.

The tech industry offers competitive salaries, which are often higher than the national average. Besides, working with international clients allows forfending local tech companies from unwanted forms of domestic economic instability.

Also, when outsourcing IT to Ukraine, foreign business owners shouldn’t be afraid of the language barrier. Around 64% of senior-level developers and 65% of team leaders have upper-intermediate or advanced levels of English proficiency.

Since Ukraine IT outsourcing companies are used to working with clients from Europe and North America, they understand what’s critical for businesses from these regions and can easily adapt to any requirements. In general, Ukrainian programmers can be characterized as responsible and open-minded people who are dedicated enough to exceed the clients’ expectations and deliver outstanding results.

4. Great price/quality ratio

When comparing IT outsourcing Ukraine with other countries in terms of the market sizes, it competes with its neighbors—Poland and Romania; and when in terms of affordable outsourcing costs—with India and China. However, if you look at this situation from the point of view of a business owner, it’s fair to say that outsourcing IT to Ukraine is the most attractive option.

Why?

Firstly, the labor markets of Poland and Romania are significantly overheated. Secondly, Ukraine has more favorable taxation. Thirdly, the competency and cultural similarity are several times higher among Ukrainian IT specialists than among their Indian colleagues.

Also, compared to other Eastern European countries, Ukraine IT outsourcing costs are lower, ranging from $25 to $50 per hour. As for the average software developer salary, it ranges between $1,800-$3,700 per month (net salary).

In case you’re interested in the software development rates around the world, we have a research-based article for you.  

The Number of Developers by Ukrainian Cities and Their Salaries

IT outsourcing Ukraine: average monthly salaries by programming languages

Although these numbers seem higher compared to certain IT outsourcing countries, like India, they’re still several times lower than in the US or Western Europe. 

Read more about the average hourly rates for offshore development services here. 

Speaking of the Ukrainian market, we want to point out the share of local developers by experience:

• 10,3% – less than a year
• 25% – 1-2 years
• 36,8% – 3-5 years
• 18% – 6-9 years
• 10% – 10+ years

Also, be it Unity 3D, Magento, Symfony, or artificial intelligence, hundreds and thousands of developers are skilled in practically any technology. As for soft skills, Ukraine IT outsourcing specialists boast impeccable project management, critical and strategic thinking, and flexibility.

5. Adoption of innovations and recent tech trends

Among the most sought-after services of the top IT outsourcing companies in Ukraine are software development, consulting, and digital services. Local tech organizations are cooperating with professionals in a wide variety of specializations. The most popular directions include the following:

• Cloud
• DevOps
• BigData
• Java
• JavaScript
• Front-end
• .NET
• Python
• Automated Testing
• Business Analysis
• QA (Manual and Automation)
• Embedded 
• Android and iOS
• Angular JS

Also, Ukraine outsourcing experiences a high demand in some rare technologies, like Ruby, Azure, Databricks, and Hybris.

Top IT outsourcing companies in Ukraine keep abreast of the recent tech innovations. With this in mind, the 2020 Oxford Government AI Readiness Index considered Ukraine as the number one artificial intelligence provider in Eastern Europe with 150 recognized providers (to compare, Poland has 110).

The Ukrainian government recently came up with the Concept for the Development of Artificial Intelligence. It aims to facilitate the integration of innovative technologies into the economically important country’s sectors.

Blockchain is also the focus of Ukraine technology development. Several globally-known Blockchain companies have Ukrainian roots, including Bitfury, Hacken, and Bloqly. Moreover, 32% of all companies using Blockchain have been established in 2017. And they actively participate in all spheres of the country’s activity, from fintech and marketing to software development and government decisions.

6. Rapidly growing IT community

A vibrant tech community is a prerequisite for the success of software development Ukraine. The country holds various online and offline events where like-minded people can meet, exchange ideas, and come up with groundbreaking solutions. The largest tech hubs (Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro) host multiple conferences, including:

• Kyiv IT Outsourcing Forum
• The Product Expo
• PyCon Ukraine
• IT Arena
• The Games Gathering Conference
• DEV_Challenge
• IForum

The upcoming IT Arena Conference 2021 boasts impressive speakers, including Maye Musk, Errol Koolmeister (H&M), Beth Anne Katz (Google), and Colleen Graneto (Airbnb), to name a few. 

Moreover, Ukraine has a flagship innovation park, UNIT.City. This is a space that helps create the ecosystem and infrastructure for business development in high technologies and creative industries. It hosts 402+ tech events each year. 

There are 22 IT Clusters in Ukraine, and top-5 of them include around 158,000 specialists, or 85% of the total amount:

7. Convenient time zone (7 out of 9 business hours with the majority of Western countries)

Ukraine outsourcing brings several bonuses, and some of them might seem insignificant until you actually start working with local developers. Any company would like to reduce its downtime, right? With Ukrainian talents, it’s possible. Due to the time differences, your remote engineers will start working earlier. So, by the time you log in and start the working day, they will already have some progress to tell you about.

8. Regular flights and geographic proximity

If you are somewhere in Europe, you’ll need no longer than 2-3 hours to get to Ukraine by plane. You can easily travel to the country from several European tech hubs, say, London, Amsterdam, or Berlin.

Also, there are regular flights from Kyiv to New York. Besides, the 7-hour time difference with Ukraine allows for more convenient cooperation for North American countries than with other outsourcing destinations (like the Philippines or India). 

Outsourcing IT to Ukraine enables easy traveling to your remote offices because you can stay in the county for 90 days without a visa. Moreover, if you’re located in Europe and need a Ukrainian software developer to visit the office, it’s not complicated as well. Locals can visit Europe visa-free for 90 days for traveling and business purposes.

9. Ukrainian entrepreneurs boast a global mindset and a client-oriented approach

When establishing businesses and developing company culture, Ukraine IT outsourcing players follow Western approaches and try to combine them with local values.

As a result, local developers work in organizations with well-built ecosystems, open communication, transparent processes, and coherent corporate policies.

The majority of Ukraine IT outsourcing companies boast healthy working environments and well-managed employees.

Foreign clients appreciate Ukrainian programmers’ readiness to embark on any project and solve any problems during the development process.

What simplifies the cooperation with Ukraine outsourcing vendors is that many are headquartered in the EU, the US, or Canada. This facilitates project development within legal boundaries and mitigates possible misunderstandings.

Around 60% of local tech specialists regularly attend IT events, competitions, meetups, or conferences. Meanwhile, 61% of the developers read professional literature, and 58%—take courses or training sessions. 

10. Ukrainian market is a vibrant tech community

The share of senior-level developers continues to grow. Currently, the Ukrainian market boasts around 15% of junior-level programmers, 36% of middle, and 31% of senior specialists.

Meanwhile, 44% of the tech professionals work as Back-end specialists, 24%—as Full-stack, and 22%— as Front-end.

It means that software development Ukraine is just as good as in any other country. The country has various types of IT companies, including outstaffing, product, outsourcing, and startups. In terms of the average salaries, the highest ones are offered by outstaffing companies and startups ($3,340 and $3,300 correspondingly).

11. Ukraine IT outsourcing implies working with skilled IT professionals 

Since Ukraine technology development is experiencing rapid growth, it’s little wonder that it attracts many young people with fresh ideas and global mindsets.

The average age of the Ukrainian tech specialist is 29 years, and the share of females in the local IT industry is 23%. Technical jobs are occupied mainly by men, while non-technical or about-technical positions have more women.

Most of the developers work without additional monitoring and gain hands-on experience in the most sought-after technologies, industries, and business niches thanks to being involved in international projects.

Wrapping Up

IT outsourcing Ukraine is a forward-looking decision that can facilitate your business development and help your company skyrocket. Local developers are known for their dedication, responsibility, and problem-solving skills. They are good at delivering timely results and turning companies’ ideas into game-changing solutions.

If you consider outsourcing IT to Ukraine, just contact Qubit Labs to discover your options.

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