The state of European VC

• The average founding year for US firms is 1998, while the most of European VC were founded after 2010. 
• The European fund size was, on average, €120 million, some firms raises funds upwards of €500 million. This is still much lower than some of the multi-billion dollar US venture funds. 
• Almost 65% of European VC focuses on seed or Series A rounds. This shows that most growth capital is coming from outside of Europe, and that there are not many European growth capital investors leading large Series C to pre-IPO rounds.
• The European VC market is spread out across more than 10 countries. This means that there is not yet one European VC market. For example, San Francisco and its surrounding Silicon Valley dominate on the US VC scene.
• The main reasons for Europe’s market fragmentation are cultural differences, the different maturity of the regions, the regulatory environment, and the language barriers.
• London is the only hub in Europe that comes closest to matching the US, according to European VCs.

The strengths of European VC

According to European investors, there are some fields where European ecosystem is powerful compared to the US:

• Educational system and universities
• Access to great talent
• Technological know-how and IP 

A lot of US investors believe that there’s a wealth of interesting European startups to invest in. Also, the public funding environment seems to play to the strengths of the ecosystem. However, many investors mentioned that public money should be more catalytic than it is now. But at the same time, they claim that public money plays an important role in financing research and innovation at universities.

Weaknesses in the European ecosystem

• The poor state of European capital markets and exit environment were recognized as a key risk factor for the ecosystem. Investors also mentioned the absence of an IPO market in Europe.
• Over 60% of respondents said European VC ecosystem looks immature because of the absence of executives with experience in scaling a company.
• More than half of respondents also highlighted that the private LP market is less mature and significantly smaller in Europe compared to the US. It forces the public sector to fill the gap.

PFR Ventures together with Inovo VC have prepared a report to summarise transactions in the Polish venture capital market in 2022. AIN.Capital shares the key points.

• In 2022, there were 460 investments made which accounted for a total of €775 million raised. Compared to 2021’s €792 million of financing, we can see a small €17 million drop this year.
• The overall value of the market remained at roughly the same level. Although, the number of financed companies increased by15% —  435 companies.
• The average value of deals also fell from €1.6 million in 2021 to €1.4 million in 2022.

The five largest investment rounds made in Poland in 2022 belong to:

1. €120 million in Series D closed by ICEYE in Q1 2022.
2. $70 million in Series B secured by Ramp in Q4 2022.
3. €58 million in an undisclosed Series round raised by Vodeno in Q4 2022.
4. €36 million in Series B raised by Silent Night in Q1 2022.
5. €28.5 million in Series A secured by SunRoof over two rounds in 2022.

Overall, 120 of the 460 transactions were investments involving PFR Ventures funds. The National Centre for Research and Development funds also played an important role in the seed-stage segment, with 216 transactions made (9% share of the total value).

The money from VC funds most often went to companies that deal with innovations in the health sector. In 2022, these deals accounted for 13.7% of the total transactions conducted.

How to Web prepared a report on Romanian venture capital funding made in 2022. AIN.Capital shares key points.

Total volume of deals in 2022

The total volume of deals in 2022 rose near the level of the previous year’s volume – €101.7 million, compared to €116.9 million in 2021.

• If discounting for the FintechOS €51M series B outlier, the overall 2021 annual volume averages to €91.4 million and 71 transactions respectively. Therefore, 2022 outperformed 2021 by 54.3%.

In terms of the total number of transactions, there’s also a slight increase on average by 3.5% from the 71 transactions recorded in 2021 to the 73 transactions in 2022.

• Since 2017, there has been an impressive 12.3 times increase in the total transactions volume. Thus, the yearly volume of venture deals involving Romanian startups went from €8.2 million in 2017 to a promising €101.7 million in 2022.

Pre-seed, seed, and series A average

In terms of the investment type breakdown and comparison with the previous year, the results are divisive:

• The volume of Series A transactions almost tripled compared with the previous year.
  • The volume went from €15.3 million in 2021 to €42.6 million in 2022. This covers an overall number of 6 deals, compared to 3 in the previous year. The average deal size increased by 39%, from €5,103.3k in 2021 to €7,095k in 2022.
• The total volume of seed transactionsincreased by 29%.
  • The amount reached €56.4 million compared to €43.4 million in 2021. There was a total of 48 transactions. The average deal size also increased from €1,007.9k in 2021 to €1,175.5k in 2022.
• On the other hand, the pre-seed volume went down by 15.9%.
  • The startups managed to secure a total of €2.7 million compared to the previous year’s €3.3 million. The number of deals also decreased to 19 transactions compared to 20 in 2021. The average size for pre-seed transactions decreased by 11.5% to €144.3k.

Top deals of 2022

Among the top deals of 2022 are Druid, Digitail, Bware Labs, Sessions, Bunnyshell, Machinations, NeuroLabs, Cyscale, AdServio, and Ogre AI, making up €51.6 million by raising series A and seed rounds. In total, these startups added up more than half (50.8%) of the total transaction volume of 2022.

About How to Web

How to Web is Eastern Europe’s leading startup and innovation conference. It helps thousands of founders and operators to create better startups, products, teams, with the support of some of the leading tech companies, experts, and investors.

Latvian startup scene overview

• According to Latvian startup database, there are 366 startups in the country. In 2022, they totally raised €92 million in investments.
• Dominating startup technologies and verticals in Latvia are SaaS, fintech, deeptech, AI, Iot, Big Data, medtech, healthtech, e-commerce, HRtech, proptech, foodtech.
• Among Latvian cities with the highest number of registered startups are Riga, Jurmala, Valmiera, Marupe, Liepaja.

• Latvian startups employ 2 949 people. Most of the companies’ shareholders are Latvians, approximately 58%, mixed nationality shareholders are 23%, and only 19% are foreign shareholders. 62% of them are men, 10% — women, and 28% legal entity shareholders.

3 biggest deals closed by Latvian startups in 2022

• Aerones, a developer of robotized solutions for wind turbine inspection and maintenance. Since its foundation in 2015, the company has provided services in 19 countries. In December 2022, Aerones has secured $38.9 million in a Series A round from undisclosed investors to accelerate the global scaling of its product.
• Juro, a contract automation platform that allows executing and monitoring contracts from one unified workspace. Juro’s clients include several internationally known brands, such as Skyscanner. Recently, Juro has closed a $23 million Series B investment round for the US and European market expansion.
• Giraffe360, the essential 3-in-1 virtual tour camera for real estate agents that creates HDR photography, virtual tours, and floor plans with 98% accuracy. The startup has raised $15 million in new funds, led by the pan-European early-stage VC Founders Fund. 

10 Latvian startups to watch in 2023

Startin.LV also prepares a list of 10 promising startups that achieved some significant milestones in 2022 – from winning global awards to participation in international pilot projects, and attracting investments. 

• Copy Monkey, a platform that generates content for e-commerce based on AI or machine learning technology platform.
• Lande, a crowdfunding platform that helps farms obtain capital using machinery, land, or future harvest as collateral.
• Longenesis, an intuitive toolkit for data discovery and patient-centric engagement, with a focus on privacy and ethics.
• Fermentful, fermented plant-based drinks to support your mental and physical well-being.
• abillio, an online tool to support individual businesses, offering company-as-a-service.
• BirgerMind, a non-invasive Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) enabling fully paralyzed patients to communicate independently.
• BeeSage, a data-driven beekeeping for productivity and sustainability.
• PrintOnPack, an online marketplace to find the most suitable flexible packaging provider.
• Huntli, an all-in-one solution that helps fight financial fraud and stay up to date with day-to-day compliance.
• Aimy, a personal AI assistant who ensures optimal staffing using artificial intelligence.

The main conclusions of the survey:

• R&D offices gave up the top ranking in terms of remuneration, falling straight to third place, with product companies taking over the top spot and outsourcing and outstaffing companies finishing second.
• Every fifth respondent reported issues with salary payout. 8.7% of respondents indicated that their salaries were cut after the start of the full-scale invasion. Another 7% reported delays in salary payments.
• For the first time, the highest median salary for developers in Ukraine was recorded in Uzhhorod, not Kyiv, at $4,750. And that’s despite the fact that the median in Kyiv is also $500 higher than last year.
• Median salaries of Marketing Managers across all levels fell by ~$300.
• The salary gap between C-level female and male executives has shrunk from 38% to 27%.
• Junior Researcher, HR, and Recruiter salaries have gone up, while the salaries of Seniors have gone down by $300.
• Senior Video Designers raised their median salary by 17% compared to last year.
• The median salaries of Junior Developers in almost all programming languages have also increased.
• Among Automation QA, those who use Java have the highest salaries.
• Senior Content Developers in E-commerce will receive an average of $925, in Gambling & Betting – $2300, and the maximum this year is offered by GameDev – $3088.

Who was surveyed? Among those who filled out our questionnaire are developers, testers, managers, marketers, data and business analysts, recruiters, content producers, and investment specialists—over 40 occupations in total.

Why is it necessary? Such studies help businesses navigate the labor market. The results of salary surveys allow professionals on both sides of the recruitment process to assess their expectations more objectively without cognitive distortions.

How was the survey conducted? The editorial staff of AIN.Capital conducted an anonymous survey. Over 3,000 individuals completed the survey, mostly those who stayed to work in Ukraine. While analyzing the results, we calculated the median salaries of respondents, dividing them into 4 categories:

• Business: CEO · COO · GM/Admin director · Product Manager · Project Manager · Product Owner · Scrum Master · Producer · Marketing Manager · Affiliate · SEO · ASO · PPC · PR · SMM · Sales Manager · Business Developer · Analyst · Data Analyst · Business Analyst · Data Science · Researcher · Support/Call center;
• Development: Software Engineer · DevOps/Unix Admin · QA Engineer · UI/UX Designer · Cyber Security · DBA · Sys.Admin;
• Content: Writer · 2D/3D Artist · Graphic designer · Sound designer · Video designer;
• Special & Administration: HR · Recruiter · Finance Manager/Accountant · Lawyer · M&A specialist · Scout · Fundraiser.

Having collected the answers and analyzed them, we have created a detailed infographic of changes in the amount of remuneration depending on the expertise, knowledge, and work history for each position provided by the survey. The calculations were based on the fixed part of the salary in USD after taxes. Bonuses and gigs were calculated separately, and the analysis thereof is also available in the article.

Survey respondent persona

The autumn 2022 survey involved 3,007 respondents. Most of them are men (75.9%), of which 42% work in Software Engineering. Marketing remains the most popular sphere among women (15.3% of survey participants); however, the spheres of QA (14.3%) and HR/Recruiting (12.9%) have almost leveled with this undisputed leader of previous surveys. The median age was 32.

The residence map of IT workers has changed dramatically. For obvious and unfortunate reasons, Kharkiv, which had the second largest number of IT workers (8%) after Kyiv, now ranks fourth. A mere 3.5% of respondents indicated it as their place of residence. Kyiv has also significantly lost ground: from last year’s 59%, only 49.3% of respondents now live in it. The number of respondents from Lviv increased from 7% to 13.7%. Professionals also dispersed to small towns, and probably a certain number of them returned to their hometowns.

Median Salaries

Business

Data Analysts became the leaders in terms of median salary among business specialists of Senior and Team Lead levels. It amounted to $4,200 and exceeded the median of Product Owners, last year’s leaders. Within this occupation, the median has significantly increased at the Senior and Middle levels and slightly increased for the Junior level. The highest median of Junior level has Business Analyst ($1,165). They have maintained this leadership since last year. The median salary in the category of Game Designer has plummeted: slightly for Middle-level specialists and very noticeably for Seniors (from $4,000 to $2,700).

Median salaries in the category of Marketing Manager of all levels fell by an average of $300. Affiliate marketing employees earn the most at the Junior and Middle levels. SEO and PPC, like last time, have almost equal medians. The median salaries of PR specialists also remained practically unchanged.

Data Analysts reported the highest salary among respondents employed in the analytics field, with $8,800. Interestingly, the maximum salary indicated among marketers ($5,000) is indicated by the respondent of Team Lead level, engaged in SMM.

The median salary of Sales Managers of varying seniority levels has increased by $100-200 since the publication of the previous report. It should be noted that most sales managers receive a fixed wage, which was calculated, but also representatives of this sphere often get bonuses and incentives, which we will discuss in this article.

Check out these vacancies: Product / Project manager, Producer, Marketing Manager, SEO, Affiliate, PPC, PR, Analyst, Sales / BizDev, Support / Call Center

The median salary for Junior Support/Call center fell from $638 to $490. The median of the Senior level also dropped by $100. Senior Technical Support has the highest median in this area, with $1,900. Specialists who work with English earn more than other specialists. Senior Support/Call center employees working in English get an average of $2,050.

C-level

The highest-paid C-level position is still General Manager (this position is much more common in large companies). GM’s median salary is $6,250. COO’s median has slightly decreased. CEO’s median (a position found in both young startups and large companies) fell from $4,750 to $4,000 this year, while Admin Director’s median increased by 35%.

CTO’s median has slightly increased and reached $5,200 ($5,000 last year). Medians of CPO, CAO, CFO, CHRO, and CSO have also increased. They decreased for CMOs and CLOs (approx. 5% decline for both).

This year, the highest C-level median is in outsourcing companies ($5,275), which is higher than last year’s median but significantly lower than last year’s median for R&D offices ($8,000). This year, the C-level median in R&D offices has plummeted by 35%. The lowest median salary in agencies is $2,800.

Among the respondents who indicated C-level, only 10% are women. Their median salary was $3,650, which is 27% lower than that of the surveyed men of the same seniority level. Interestingly, the number of women at the C-level has decreased since last year, possibly due to the departure of many women abroad caused by the start of the full-scale invasion. However, at the same time, the salary gap has narrowed (last year it was 38%).

29% of respondents at the CEO/COO/GM/Admin director level used to work in the Product sphere. A quarter of respondents were engaged in development, and this fully concurs with the results of previous surveys.

Check out these vacancies: CTO / Architect, CEO / COO / CMO / CPO / CIO або колекцію C-Level

Special & Administration

Junior HR and Recruiter raised their median to $910 and $920 respectively. Junior Researcher’s median has doubled. Across all HR/Recruiter positions, median senior-level salaries fell by an average of $300, most of all for recruiters (from $2,250 to $1,700). Middle Recruiter and HR Generalist positions remained at the last year’s salary level. The highest salaries for recruiters, regardless of seniority, are offered by companies with over 1,500 employees (overall median of $2,600).

Check out these vacancies: HR / Recruiter, Legal, Accountant

Junior specialists’ median salary in the financial managers and accountants category dropped from $678 to $490. However, the medians of Middle and Senior specialists increased by $100. Working in international finances still brings much more than working exclusively in the Ukrainian segment, although the median of the latter has increased from $635 to $990 compared to last year. The median salaries of those who work with Ukrainian and international financial affairs are almost equal to the median salaries of international specialists ($2,000 and $2,100 respectively). However, last year the difference between them was $900 in favor of international specialists.

The trend of slow salary growth among Junior and Middle lawyers continues. Nevertheless, Senior Lawyers’ salaries have suffered a loss ($2,400 last year and $2,050 this year). Interestingly, international lawyers have a lower median this year than the previous one. Those who work with Ukrainian legislation also earn less than last year. However, the median of those working with international and Ukrainian law has slightly improved, adding $100 to the previous year’s median.

The median of Senior M&A and Fundraising has increased noticeably compared to last year. However, the maximum remuneration is much lower. Last year the highest wage was $7,000; this year, it is merely $4,000. On average, specialists in this field indicated that they participate in 5 deals per year, with the maximum number being 40. 78% of respondents indicated they also have additional income outside their primary job.

Content

In the Content sphere, Senior Video designer retains the highest median, currently at $3,200, compared to last year’s $2,650. Senior-level 2D/3D Artist’s median has increased and now stands at $2,900. Middle Writers’ median almost reached last year’s Senior level median and now stands at $1,200, while Senior Writers can expect a median of $1,600.

We also investigated in which companies the Content group is paid more and discovered that Middle and Senior level specialists could expect the highest remuneration in Retail companies ($2,300), while the lowest median is in R&D offices and outsourcing companies ($1,350 and $1,400 respectively).

Check out these vacancies: Copywriter, Artist 2D / 3D, Designer UI / UX

Development

JavaScript is the most popular programming language, used by 23.6% of the surveyed specialists (compared to 24.4% last time). The second most popular language is Java (14.7%), followed by C# (12.2%). Last year top 3 were JavaScript, PHP, and Java. In this survey, PHP was indicated by only 11.5% of respondents (last year, it was indicated as the primary language by 15.9%). JavaScript holds leadership among the additional languages, followed by TypeScript and SQL.

Check out developer vacancies for JavaScript, C / C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Kotlin, Swift and Node.js, React Native, Angular, Vue.js, .NET, Laravel, Yii2 frameworks

In 2021, developers’ salaries were growing; it is believed that the market was extremely hot that year. Has anything changed with the beginning of the full-scale invasion? According to the survey, salaries have increased for almost every position in the Development category.

Speaking about the most well-paid programming languages, Ruby has the highest median at the Senior level for the second year in a row with $6,000. Junior Ruby developers also have the highest starting median of $1,300. The highest median salary among Middle Developers remained for Kotlin developers at $3,200, although it fell by $100 compared to last year.

Last year’s statistics also confirm the medians of Senior PHP and Unity developers. Their medians are the lowest. The medians of Junior developers across all programming languages have increased; the only juniors who earned less this year are Junior Swift Developers. Their median dropped by almost 20%.

Median salaries for some languages depending on the libraries and frameworks used:
⦁ The median salary of C# programmers using .NET is $4,000 (the median remained the same as last year), using Unity – $3,430.
⦁ JavaScript developers working with Angular.js receive an average of $4,650 ($3,200 last year), Node.js – $3,500, React.js – $4,200 (slightly lower than last year’s median). Those who work with Vue.js have the lowest median of $2,650.
⦁ Kotlin developers who develop Android applications in the Android Framework earn an average of $5,200. Those who work with Flutter have a median salary of $4,500.
⦁ iOS app developers who develop using UIKit and SwiftUI have a median salary of $4,850, and developers who work with Flutter have $2,400.
⦁ A PHP developer working on Laravel earns, on average, $3,500. Those programmers who work with Symfony have a median salary of $3,350 (last year, the median was $5,000).
⦁ The average salary of a Python developer working with Django is $3,500, and a Python developer working with Flask is $5,000.

Salaries of programmers vary depending on the role: the highest median salary of a Senior System developer is $5,500, Team Lead Architect earns the most at $6,000. Full Stack developers were the only ones who lost in the median salary at the Senior level (last year’s median was $4,300). Machine Learning specialists have the highest median salary among developers of the Middle level. Mobile developers have the lowest median salary of Junior level.

Check out vacancies for developers: Back-End, Front-End, Full-Stack

Whereas last year we wrote about the narrowing of the median gap among large cities, we are witnessing decentralization this year. We have already noted in the respondent persona section that this year, due to Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, many people, including IT workers, left the cities of the East, South, and Central regions to move away from the front. The overall picture of programmers’ salaries has become fragmented due to such relocations. For the first time, the highest salary in Ukraine was recorded not in Kyiv but in Uzhhorod – $4,750. This is given that in Kyiv, the median salary is $500 higher than last year and amounts to $4,500. The median salary is also above $4,000 in Lviv ($4,000), Kharkiv ($4,000), and Poltava ($4,250).

Most regional centers of Ukraine have a median salary of more than $3,000. Among them is Dnipro, where the median salary fell by 10% and now amounts to $3,200. A similar situation is observed in Odesa ($3025), although the median salary there dropped by 22%. While last year there was not a single regional center where the median salary was below $2,000, this year, we have two such cities: Mykolaiv ($1,950) and Rivne ($1,713). This year we also did not receive any filled-out surveys from Kherson.

The QA/QC sector has seen an increase in salaries. Senior Automation QA and General QA median salaries increased by 5% and 7%, respectively. Senior Manual QA retained last year’s median. Testers who use languages get more than testers without knowledge of at least one programming language.

Like last year, Automation QA makes up a quarter of all testers; 56.5% are engaged in manual testing. The most popular language among testers is Java (17.1%), followed by JavaScript (15.2%). Those who use Java have the highest median salary in Automation QA ($3,300). Those who do not use a language at all in their work have a total median of $1,500.

System Administrator earns the least of all professions in the Development category. Team Lead Sys.Admin has a median of $2,000, Senior – $1,366. Senior DevOps receives an average of $4,000 (this figure has not changed since last year’s survey). Team Lead DBAs can expect to earn approximately the same amount, with a median of $3,900.

UI/UX Designers this year have a higher median salary at the Junior and Senior levels; the median at the Middle level remained the same as last year. Middle 2D/3D Artists earn 12% more than UI/UX Designers, but at the Senior level UI/UX Designers are 11% ahead of them.

Check out these vacancies: QA / QC, QA Automation, Manual QA

Freelancers

2% of respondents indicated that they work exclusively as freelancers. To calculate the median salaries by occupation, we multiplied the hourly rate by the number of working hours per month for each trade and derived the median.

Freelancers work from 80 to 200 hours per month. Last year’s survey showed that freelancers work at least 100 hours. Last year, the most frequent answer was 160 hours per month; this year, the most frequent response was 100 hours, although the number of those who work more than 160 has increased. Thus, on average, freelancers who filled out our survey form, work 140 hours.

Most of the sample respondents are involved in Software Development. Their median salary was $3,800. UI/UX Designers again became the first in terms of efficiency, and they earn the most from freelance – $4,000 per month, which is 32% more than last year. Marketers began to make money solely from freelance a little less often over the past year, though their median has increased and now amounts to $3,000. Lawyers earn the least amount from freelance work ($700).

Check out the vacancies in this category: Remote

Other observations

Bonuses, shares, options, and additional earnings

5% of the surveyed specialists indicated that they own options and shares of companies. This figure has not changed since the last survey. Of these 5% holders, 65% hold options, and the rest hold options and shares or only shares. 31% of C-level professionals who participated in the survey indicated the ownership of shares and/or options. AIN.capital has already conducted a study on the topic, according to which options are more often issued in startups, starting from the first year of work. Although this practice is not widespread in Ukraine, most respondents would still prefer options to cash bonuses.

Fundraisers, M&As, and Sales Managers most often receive bonuses. Almost half of C-level also get bonuses, and their median monthly bonus is $2,250, the median of sales reps is $860 (14% less than last year), M&A – $900 (17% more). Specialists in the Content category, developers, and testers get bonuses the least often, and their median bonus ranges from $200 to $400.

16% of respondents indicated additional earnings. Most often, these are lawyers (33%), marketers (28%), and C-level (25%). Testers (9%) and HR/recruiters (7%) are the least likely to have additional income.

Salaries depending on the level of English

The level of English proficiency has increased this year, though not significantly. The number of respondents who are fluent in English has not changed. The number of those who speak English at the Advanced level has increased by 2.6%, the number of respondents with Upper Intermediate level has risen by 4%, and only 8% of respondents are fluent in English. Their number increased due to those who had Intermediate level and below.

For technical specialists, the knowledge of English, at least at the Intermediate level, allows counting on a higher salary. Starting from this level, Juniors have an advantage of $200. The median of Middle level with Intermediate English is separated from the median of Pre-Intermediate plus $700. For Senior developers to feel the difference, they need to have at least an Upper Intermediate level of English.

The situation is almost the same for non-technical specialists. Juniors and Middles need to have at least Upper Intermediate so that the difference in medians is noticeable. A Senior level professional can count on a median of more than $3,000, starting from the Advanced English level.

For clarity, we will examine the impact of English on the salary level across several occupations:
⦁ Senior recruiter with a Pre-Intermediate level of English earns on average $1,000, Junior recruiter with Upper Intermediate level of English can make the same amount. An advanced level of English allows you to earn an average of $2,000, even for Middle-level specialists.
⦁ Junior marketers do not depend on the level of English. Still, from the Middle level, the language plays a significant role: Intermediate level allows one to earn an average of $1,000, while the fluent level allows one to make $1,638 on average.
⦁ Like marketers, developers do not depend much on the knowledge of English at the Junior level. Only basic knowledge of English significantly reduces the level of salary expectations. Senior developers have the same median of $4000 for all who know English at the Elementary to Intermediate level. At the Upper Intermediate level, they already make an average of $1,000 more.
⦁ Senior employees of the Content category who know English at the Advanced level earn twice as much as those who know English at the Pre-Intermediate level. Those who speak the language fluently get three times more than the latter.

Salaries depending on the industry

24.9% of our respondents are engaged in E-commerce; this is the most popular industry in the field of IT, which is confirmed by the third survey in a row. FinTech again retained second place, followed by HealthTech. Gambling & Betting gave up fourth place to DataTech.

We were able to identify differences in median salaries depending on the industry.
⦁ Senior marketers in HealthTech, on average, earn $1,400, while in GameDev, the median salary of marketers is $2,600.
⦁ Middle and Senior Project Managers in GameDev have the lowest median ($1,750 and $3,000, respectively). And the highest median salary for PM is in the DataTech industry.
⦁ The highest median salary of a Junior Software Developer is in the field of HealthTech ($1,250), and the second highest median awaits a beginner developer in the field of GameDev ($1,150). The lowest median salaries of Middle and Senior Software Developers are in the HealthTech industry, and the highest – Gambling & Betting ($5,500 for Seniors).
⦁ The Content category has the largest spread of medians at the Middle and Senior levels. For example, a Senior level specialist in an E-commerce company will get an average of $925, in Gambling & Betting – $2,300, the maximum of this year is offered by GameDev – $3,088.

Salaries depending on the university

This year, graduates of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy reported the highest salaries among technical trades. The median remuneration for technical professionals (Software Engineer, QA, DevOps, UI/UX Designer, Cyber Security, DBA, Sys.Admin) at the Senior level is $5,100. The second and third places are shared by Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and National Aviation University, with a median salary of $5,000 for both. Among non-technical professions, same as last year, the highest salaries were indicated by graduates of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute ($3,400 at the Senior level).

The new data contradict last year’s conclusions about the insignificant impact of higher education on salary. Lack of higher education insignificantly affects the median of Junior and Middle levels. Lack of higher education negatively affects the median salary of Junior technical specialists and Middle-level non-technical occupations. At higher levels of seniority, this inequality is exacerbated. Both non-technical and technical Senior professionals have the lowest medians for those who indicated no higher education.

C-level salaries are also dependent on having a graduate degree. Top managers who indicated no higher education also indicated salaries in the bottom 30% of the lowest wages for employees of this level.

Check out vacancies suitable for university graduates or for starting a career in IT: No experience in IT and Junior Friendly

Salaries depending on the company size

The results of both previous salary surveys indicated that the amount of remuneration also depends on the company’s size. Namely, the larger the company, the higher the salary of employees, as is commonly believed. This has already been confirmed by the results of previous surveys and was again confirmed in the autumn 2022 survey. It is safe to say that the C-level salary depends on the company’s size.

Check out vacancies in Ukrainian startups: Startup

However, several exceptions do not fit the rule “Bigger company – higher salary.” The median salary of analysts does not tend to grow with the company’s size. The highest Senior Analyst median salary is reported in companies with 101-200 employees ($4,200) and 500-800 employees ($4,500). Senior UI/UX Designers earn the most in small companies with 21-50 employees ($4,100) and slightly less in huge companies with 1,500+ employees ($3,900). The median salary in companies of other sizes ranges from $3,000 to $3,500. Junior Sales Managers earn the least in large companies. In small companies with less than 20 employees, the median salary of a Junior Sales Manager is $800. In contrast, companies with 501-800 employees have an average of $400, and a $200 flat rate in giants with 1,500+ employees. However, it should be remembered that Sales Managers receive bonuses and allowances for meeting and exceeding sales targets more often than others.

Salaries depending on the type of company

This year, R&D offices lost first place in salaries and dropped to third place, putting product companies first and outsourcing and outstaffing companies in second place. The median salary of senior specialists in R&D offices fell from $4,950 to $4,250 in technical positions and from $2,750 to $2,500 in non-technical roles. In product companies, the median salary has increased to $5,000 for technical specialists and $2,950 for non-technical Senior specialists. The median salary of Seniors in outsourcing and outstaffing was $4,400 for technical specialists and $2,850 for non-technical specialists.

For Middle-level tech professions, the median salary in product companies, outsourcing companies, and R&D offices is almost identical; for non-technical specialists of this level, the median salary is significantly lower only in R&D companies ($1,100), product and outsourcing companies keep almost the same, much higher than in other types of companies, median salary ($1,750 and $1,700, respectively). The highest salary for Junior level technical professions is in R&D offices ($1,230), for non-technical jobs – in outsourcing and outstaffing companies ($1,000). We still have to state that non-technical specialists of all levels earn the least in specialized agencies.

he highest median among CTOs is in R&D offices ($7,190), the lowest is in technology departments of non-technical companies ($1,700). CMOs, CLOs, CAOs, CFOs, CHROs, and CPOs have the highest median in R&D offices ($4,400) and the lowest in agencies ($2,050).

Check out vacancies in Ukrainian product companies: Product

Support of employees in times of full-scale war and donations

Every fifth respondent had problems with the payment of salary. 8.7% of respondents indicated that their salaries were cut after the start of the full-scale invasion. Another 7% reported delays in the payment of salaries.
Chart

We assumed that the stability of salary payments and the possibility of keeping them at the pre-war level or even increasing them should increase along with the increase in the number of employees of the company. Indeed, the results of the survey showed that in small companies (up to 20 people), the number of employees whose salaries were neither delayed nor cut is 64.2%. In companies with a size from 21 to 500 employees, the percentage is higher: 74.2%-76.8%. Larger companies (501-1500 employees) offered stable payment of salary to 82.9%-83.8% of employees. The largest percentage of those who were paid salaries on time and in full or received a raise was in companies with more than 1500 employees at 91.2%.

The largest number of people who lost their jobs at the beginning of the full-scale invasion worked in companies with less than 20 employees (6.1% of all those who work or worked in companies with up to 20 employees). Companies with more than 500 employees had the least layoffs (0.5%-1.5%).

Depending on the type of company, the number of employees who had certain problems with compensation also varies. The largest number of those who have not been paid salaries for some time were among employees of retail companies (10.2%). 40.7% of Retail employees also faced salary cuts. Salaries were delayed most often in the tech departments of non-tech companies (17.5%), and they also had the highest percentage of layoffs (7.5% of employees of tech departments lost their jobs at the beginning of the full-scale military aggression of Russia). Agencies came second by the number of layoffs (4%). Salary cuts were also quite frequent in agencies (28.6%).

The invasion’s least tangible (financial) impact was on the employees of outsourcing and outstaffing companies (90.2% indicated that the pre-war salary was maintained or increased). R&D offices come second (86.3%), followed by product companies (80.8%). In product companies, the most frequent problem (10%) was salary cuts. Among respondents working in telecom, no one indicated that they had lost their job at the beginning of the invasion.

71% of respondents said that the company helped with relocation at the beginning of the full-scale war.

The survey results showed that IT specialists donate up to 10% of their salary to the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
⦁ 58.4% of respondents donate up to 10% of their salary to the Armed Forces every month.
⦁ 26.9% donate 10-25%.
⦁ 6.7% of respondents donate 25-50%.
⦁ 2.1% of respondents donate more than 50% of their income.
⦁ 5.9% do not donate at all.

11% of Junior level specialists do not donate, and the largest percentage of those who donate more than half of their income is among freelancers (9.7%).

By conducting a sizeable anonymous salary survey, the AIN.capital team helps to create a more transparent labor market. Based on the survey results, business representatives can navigate salary matters, and specialists can assess the level of their remuneration against over 10 criteria. Furthermore, the survey aims to determine the suggested salary for most of the positions in our recruitika.com vacancies section, which already offers over 9,000 technical and non-technical vacancies.

All salaries are given in dollars per month after taxes and fees.

• The number of job offers for IT positions in Polish startups increased in Q3 of 2022 by 54% compared to the previous quarter. It means that the Polish startup ecosystem continues to develop intensively.

The median salary of IT specialists in Polish startups amounted to:

• Over $1,700 (7,500 PLN) for juniors per month.
  • Interestingly, 10% of the highest offers for juniors decreased from almost $3,000 (13,000 PLN) to over $2,300 (10,369 PLN), which means that companies stopped offering high salaries for the less experienced specialists. It highlights a positive trend in the IT market, and a certain stabilization of remuneration in relation to the competence and experience of employees, the report says.
  • Five percent of job openings offer to programmers at junior level more than $2,500 (11,188 PLN).
• Over $3,400 (15,000 PLN) for mid-level programmers.
  • The report’s data shows that the rates for mid-level specialists increased by about 10% in every range, as well as increased the number of job offers for them. It demonstrates the growing role of employees at mid-level for startups in Poland.
  • More than $5,300 (23,500 PLN) is offered for middles in 5% of all job openings.
• More than $5,400 (24,000 PLN) for seniors. Some programmers at this level can earn over $9,300 (40,950 PLN) per month.

• Polish startups most often are looking for programmers specializing in JavaScript. Almost every third job opening concerned this technology (20.2% of all offers). Testing skills are in the second place (10%), and Java is in third place (9.99%).
• The decline in popularity was recorded by the PHP language, which may be due to the growing interest in other backend technologies, such as Python, Java or NET. At the same time, there are visible increases in the number of recruitments in the architecture of cloud solutions and more niche technologies.
• The highest average salary is offered to Security and DevOps specialists, while a slight decrease in the remuneration of programmers building a cloud architecture was noticeable. Scala experts took the third places on the salary scale.
• The rarest expertise the startups require are security, gaming and HTML.

This year, the report also has spotlighted tech sector of Ukraine, admitting its special role in defense efforts and rebuilding. AIN.Capital picked up the key insights.

European tech ecosystem overview

• The record-breaking level of investment activity that defined 2021 carried over into 2022. In fact, by the end of the first quarter of 2022, investment levels were tracking a staggering 52% up from 2021. In July, the investment frenzy of the past 18 months started to cool off, and in August and September the investment levels drop closer to levels last seen in 2018, at around $3-$5 billion invested per month. As a consequence, total investment in Q3 2022 ended up down more than 40% compared to the same quarter in 2021.

• 2021 was a remarkable year for the European tech ecosystem, with total investment eclipsing a landmark $100 billion for the first time. Given the material slowdown experienced over the summer, a conservative estimate as of 2022 would be just around $85 billion for the full year. It does represent a year-on-year decline of 18% — but in the face of the toughest macroeconomic environment since the Global Financial Crisis, such a minimal decrease is a noteworthy outcome.

• Meanwhile, since the start of 2022, European tech companies across both the public and private markets have seen around $400 billion of value erased. As a result, the total ecosystem value has fallen to $2.7 trillion from its $3.1 trillion peak in late 2021.
• IPOs have been one of the biggest casualties of highly uncertain and volatile public markets and negative public market sentiment. There have only been three tech IPOs with a market cap in excess of $1B in Europe and the US this year. This compares to 86 during the bumper year for IPOs of 2021, representing a 30x reduction in volume.

• Just 31 new unicorns birthed in Europe during 2022. This marks a steep decline from last year, which saw a record number of new unicorns — 105. 45 unicorns have also been “de-horned”, as their value dropped below $1 billion.

• Fundraising became harder. According to the reports’ data, 82% of founder respondents to the survey believing it is now harder to raise venture capital than it was 12 months ago. At the same time, fundraising also is taking longer, according to the 74% of surveyed VCs. More commons become bridge rounds, a financing round that keeps a company afloat at the same valuation until its next larger round of funding.

• One of the financial downturn’s most visible and severe impacts on the tech sector is the wave of layoffs that started this year. Year to date, over 14,000 tech employees of European headquartered companies lost their jobs, representing 7% of all tech employee layoffs globally.

Ukrainian ecosystem during the war

• The report says that Ukrainians and the Ukrainian tech ecosystem have demonstrated incredible resilience, and even growth, in the face of war. For the first eight months of 2022, ICT exports actually grew by 16% year over year, according to the monitoring service Opendatabot. The volume of Ukrainian computer services increased by 13% (to almost $5.5 billion). Meanwhile, 85% of Ukraine’s IT companies have restored pre-war indicators like revenue.

• According to the latest mapping of the Ukrainian tech ecosystem by Dealroom, Ukraine is home to more than 1500 startups, while there are a further 600 Ukrainian-founded tech companies that are based outside the country. Dealroom estimates that the combined enterprise value of Ukrainian tech companies totals almost $23 billion and, while this has declined in 2022 in line with the global technology market changes, their overall value has grown by more than 8x since 2017.

• Despite the war, a total of $241 million has been raised by startups born in Ukraine in 2022, dating to the end of October. To put that within the contest of the wider CEE region, this places Ukraine in sixth place overall, just behind Romania.

The Warsaw-based matchmaking platform for startups and investors, Vestbee, has prepared the CEE startups funding report for Q3 of 2022. AIN.Capital shares key points.

• During the third quarter of 2022, the number of funding rounds reached 264 (only 197 of them are fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, investors, and company details). The value of month-to-month investments steadily decreased.
  • In July, the startups closed 75 deals, raising over €480 million.
  • In August, the number dropped to 54 deals, raising nearly €340 million.
  • And in September, the total number of raised investments reached 69, with just €300 million raised.
• The total value of investments in Q3 reached just above €1.3 billion, which is €0.7 billion less than in Q2 of 2022.

• Countries which managed to receive the highest number of funding rounds in Q3 are:
  • Poland with 127 rounds,
  • Estonia raised 34 rounds,
  • Ukraine was able to secure 19 rounds.
• The largest investment rounds belong to companies:
  • Cera, raising €150 million during a venture round plus €150 million in debt funding.
  • Unstoppable Domains, raising €63 million during Series A round.
  • Fonoa Technologies, securing €58 million in Series B funding.
  • Ready Player Me, receiving €55 million in the Series B investment.
  • and Bitlevex, raising €49 million in a venture round.

The list of most active VC funds in Q3 2022 included SATUS Starter, EBRD, EIC, Movens Capital, and Presto Ventures. As well as Endeavor, KAYA, LT Capital, Plural VC, Creandum, and Eleven Ventures. Also Inventure, SMOK Ventures, and Speedup Group.

The most popular industries to invest during these months were healthcare, fintech, AI, blockchain, SaaS, and energy.

You can also read more about Q2 of 2022 in the previous scene reports, also made by Vestbee, here.

Baltic startup scene potential

In recent years, the Baltic countries experienced a growing number of startups:

• Estonia has over 1300 new startups.
• Lithuania has more than 1100.
• Latvia has over 600.

In 2021, they totalled €1.4 Billion in Estonia, €1.8 billion in Lithuania, and €400-500 million in Latvia. 

The startups have a huge potential to become a major contributor to the Baltic region’s economies. To raise the ecosystem to the next level, though, the Baltic countries need more very successful startups (so-called “scaleups”), potentially employing thousands of people and generating significant revenues.

Scaling-up

The number of startups in the Baltics grows every year, but only about 4-5% manage to scale-up and become successful businesses. A rather significant part of the startups in Baltics involves companies with less than 20 employees that are still struggling to become successful.

Among the two reasons preventing the startups from growing are the shortage of top-tier employees and shortage of funding.

Venture funding

Since 2017, venture funding in the Baltics has increased dramatically. The speed of growth in funding has accelerated as well — it takes less time to move to subsequent rounds. But funding options are still listed as the predominant challenge in the Baltics startup ecosystem.

In 2022 alone, Estonia has experienced a total of 55 deals, while Lithuania had 19, and Latvia — only 12.

The report states that it takes on average about 23 approaches to sources of venture capital to get funding – more persistent startups ultimately do get funded.

In addition to that, having a serial founder on the team correlates with greater success in attracting funding. 65% of startups that attracted funding in Estonia, 58% in Lithuania, and 59% in Latvia had at least one serial founder on their teams.

CIVITTA claims that creating more opportunities to network and exchange knowledge with serial founders would benefit the entire system. The work of startup associations like Unicorns Lithuania, Estonian Founders Society, and others are very important in this regard.

Joint venture fund Hypra has prepared an overview of Ukrainian Web3 ecosystem. AIN.Capital publishes the key facts.

• In the last five years, more than 80 Web3 startups were launched in Ukraine. As the report shows, they have totally raised over $1 billion over the past 4 years.
• Such top global funds as a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Hypersphere, as well as Alameda that has recently filed for bankruptcy, are among the Ukrainian Web3 startups’ backers.

Ukrainian funds that invest in blockchain projects and crypto

There are more than 10 Ukrainian funds that supports blockchain and crypto projects. The most active are the following:

1. ZBS Capital. Founded in 2017, the fund focuses on Web3 companies at seed stage. It has already made 82 investments since its launch.
2. TA Ventures. It is an early-stage venture fund, backing companies in Europe and North America at Seed and Series A. TA Ventures has 6 crypro startups in its portfolio.
3. Hypra. It is a $25 million Web3-oriented joint venture fund, investing in and building projects together with founders. To date, Hypra has invested in 4 crypro projects.
4. SID Venture Partners. Founded in 2021, it is a €15 million fund that invests in early-stage technology startups. Currently, there are 3 crypto projects in its portfolio.
5. Roosh Ventures. The fund is focused on the US and European markets and invests in technology startups at various stages, from seed to Series C. It has made 2 investments since its launch in 2021.

Ukraine on the global Web3 map

According to the Hypra report, there are more than 50 Ukrainian blockchain development companies that serve clients worldwide. Here is the top 10 by the company size:

Top 15 largest Ukrainian Web3 companies by valuation are the following:

About Hypra.fund

Hypra was launched in March 2022 by Ukrainian investor Igor Pertsiya (ex-TA Ventures and CEX.io) and IT entrepreneur Dmitry Volkonsky (TRIONIKA). Besides investments, the venture fund offers ready-to-work blockchain development teams, helps companies reach a new level in operational processes, select an effective team, find the best tools for growth, and raises funding rounds. 

• The combined value of startups in the region has quadrupled in the last five years and amounted at €190 billion in 2022. Croatia, Lithuania, and Ukraine are recognized as the fastest growing counties in CEE. The report shows that Croatia grew by 16.6 time to €10 billion, Lithuania 15.7 times to €4.7 billion, and Ukraine 9.3 times to €23.3 billion.

• At the same time, despite the increasing global economic downturn and geopolitical fallout of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2021 and 2022 have been the strongest years for unicorn creation in CEE, producing 36 and 44 respectively, more than doubling the number of unicorns since December 2020.
• There are 8 new unicorns in 2022, including Ukrainian AirSlate and Unstoppable Domains, Lithuanian Nord Security, Croatian Rimac Automobili, Estonian Glia and Verify, Bulgarian Payhawk, and Czhech Productboard.

• VC activity in CEE has already surpassed every year prior to 2021 (€6.1 billion). At the current rate, the region is on track to break its yearly venture capital investment record and raise €6.2 billion. Estonia with €1.4 billion VC funding value, Czechia with €1.1 billion, Croatia with €865 million, and Poland with €550 million hold over 70% of total VC funding so far in 2022.
• As the report shows, there were 19 new €50+ million funds announced this year across CEE, including three Ukrainian-targeted funds with a total value of €155 million.

• According to CEE tech ecosystem report made by Dealroom.co, such sectors as Enterprise Software, Gaming, Web3, and Crypto are growing in the region rapidly:
  • CEE Enterprise Software startups have a combined valuation of €80 billion;
  • VC funding has grown 5.6 times for CEE-based Crypto and Web3 startups since 2021 and amounted to €119 million in 2022.
  • Estonia (€1.3 billion), Slovenia (€427 million), and Serbia (€289 million) concentrate over 70% of combined value of Web3 startups in CEE.
• This year, the Dealroom.co report was prepared with a spotlight on Ukraine. It noted that Ukrainian startups are showing great resilience in spite of the war and recession: in 2022 the country’s 1,500 active startups’ enterprise value growing 3.3 times since 2020.
• Moreover, Ukraine is ranked first among the highest in Europe for jobs created per Euro of venture capital invested.

• The report’s data shows that between April and the end of June 2022, there were 93 deals carried out with 111 Polish and foreign investment firms involved. They provided over €192 million (916 million zł) to Polish companies.
• The total amount of financing raised by Polish startups since the beginning of this year reached €418 million (over 2 billion zł). It is 76% more than for the same period of 2021.

• The average amount invested in Q2 of 2022 was over €2 million (9.9 million zł), which is 60% higher than in the previous quarter and is the second highest figure ever. The highest was in Q4 of 2021 and reached almost €2.6 million (12.4 million zł).
• Meanwhile, the biggest investment rounds in Q2 of 2022 belong to:
  • Customer service automation startup Tidio, a $25 million Series B investment led by PeakSpan Capital.
  • Behavioral data analytics platform Synerise, a $23 million Series B round led by Carpathian Partners.
  • Robotics startup Nomagic, a $22 million Series A investment co-led by Khosla Ventures and Almaz Capital. 
  • RFID tags manufacturer Talkin’ Things, a $20 million round led by TDJ.
  • Payroll tech provider Symmetrical, a $19 million Series A round led by Target Global.
  • AI software startup Zowie, a $14 million Series A investment led by Tiger Global Management.

• Many new top VCs invested in Polish startups in the second quarter, including Peakspan Capital, Tiger Global, Almaz Capital, and 500 Global.
• Talking about the sources of capital invested in the Q2 of 2022, 29% were public-private capital, and international funds accounted for 72% of deal value. At the same time, 75 of the 93 deals were based on public-private capital. Seventy-eight deals were conducted by Polish teams.

The report shows that the Polish funding ecosystem has been developing rapidly this year. On the previously published by Inovo Venture Partners map, you can check out the lists of all currently active local and foreign VCs, business angels, and accelerators.

Inovo Venture Partners has created a map of the Polish funding ecosystem in 2022 that includes lists of active local and foreign VCs, business angels, and accelerators. AIN.Capital publishes the details.

There are nearly 200 active VCs and CVCs in Poland now:

• Sixty-six active local VCs that made investments during January 2020-June 2022;

• 128 foreign VCs invested in Polish companies within the timeframe mentioned above; 

• and at least nine CVCs.

Ninety-seven new international VCs have started to invest in Poland, including the world’s tier-1 VCs:

• Warsaw-based cryptocurrency payments startup Ramp has closed a $53 million round from Balderton Capital, NFX, and Seedcamp;
• Polish cloud automation startup Spacelift has closed a $6 million Series A round from Blossom Capital and Insight Partners;
• Polish AI software startup Zowie has raised a $14 million Series A investment from 10x Founders, Gradient Ventures, and Tiger Global.

There are also:

• Forty-eight active business angels in Poland. The list of them is here;
• Thirty-one accelerators for the earliest startups — here is the list of them;

• Seven venture builders. The list of them is here;
• Two matching programs aimed to help find a co-founder or clarify your business idea. Click here to check out the list of them.

About Inovo Venture Partners

Inovo Venture Partners is a VC fund that focuses on Poland and the CEE region. It backs early-stage, post-traction startups with up to €3M of initial investment and helps them build global brands while driving the growth of the local startup ecosystem. Booksy, Tidio, Zowie, and Preply are among its portfolio companies.

Brief overview

• The Russian invasion relies in part on a cyber strategy that includes at least three distinct and sometimes coordinated efforts—destructive cyberattacks within Ukraine, network penetration and espionage outside Ukraine, and cyber influence operations targeting people around the world.
• On several occasions the Russian military has coupled its cyberattacks with conventional weapons aimed at the same targets in Ukraine.
• Microsoft detected Russian network intrusion efforts on 128 organizations in 42 countries outside Ukraine. The most efforts of Russian cyber troops were concentrated on the strongest allies of Ukraine: the United States, Poland, Baltic countries, Scandinavia, and Turkey.
• Since the start of the war, the Russian targeting has been successful 29 percent of the time.
• The report also unveils detail about sophisticated and widespread Russian foreign influence operations being used among other things, to undermine Western unity and bolster their war efforts.
• Many current Russian cyber influence operations currently go for months without proper detection, analysis, or public reporting.

Cyber War in Ukraine

While most reports state that the war in Ukraine started on February 24 of this year, in fact the first cyberattacks were fired the day before. The first weapon to be fired was the wiper software that we call “Foxblade.” Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has detected its launch against 19 government and critical infrastructure entities across Ukraine. It was developed and launched by the same group associated with Russian military intelligence that developed and launched the NotPetya attack against Ukraine in 2017.

Since the war began, MSTIC has detected multiple attempts to use eight distinct malware programs—some wipers and some other forms of destructive malware—against 48 different Ukrainian agencies and enterprises.

On several occasions the Russian military has coupled its cyberattacks with conventional weapons aimed at the same targets. Like the combination of naval and ground forces long used in an amphibious invasion, the war in Ukraine has witnessed Russian use of cyberattacks to disable computer networks at a target before seeking to overrun it with ground troops or aerial or missile attacks.

Russia attacks the whole World

As a coalition of countries has come together to defend Ukraine, Russian intelligence agencies have stepped up their network penetration and espionage activities targeting governments outside Ukraine. Not surprisingly, this increase appears to be most focused on obtaining information from inside the governments that are playing critical roles in the West’s response to the war.

Since the war began, MSTIC has detected Russian network intrusion efforts on 128 targets in 42 countries outside Ukraine.

While these targets are spread around the globe, 63 percent of this observed activity has involved NATO members.

• Russian cyber espionage efforts have focused on targets in the United States more than any other country, with American targets representing 12 percent of the global total outside Ukraine.
• At the top of this list is Poland, with 8 percent of intrusions, where the delivery of a majority of military and humanitarian aid is coordinated.
• The Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania represent a combined 14 percent of total intrusions outside Ukraine. (In contrast, in Estonia, the third Baltic border country, where the country has adopted cloud services, we’ve detected no Russian cyber intrusions since the onset of the Ukraine war.)
• Russian cyber activities have also actively targeted Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. These collectively represent nearly 16 percent of all the observed Russian attacks globally.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, MSTIC’s detections have found that Russian actors have been successful 29 percent of the time. In a quarter of these successful intrusions, MSTIC identified incidents that led to the successful exfiltration of an organization’s data.

Russian Cyber Influence Operations

Russian agencies are deploying cyber influence operations that are designed to support its war aims. These involve sophisticated and coordinated efforts to use digital technologies and the internet to create and spread false narratives to advance multiple goals. 

The Soviet Union long invested in and even excelled in sowing doubt, chaos, or confusion in other countries. One of numerous examples involved work in the early 1980s to blame the United States for the spread of AIDS. For example, in July of 1983, an anonymous letter appeared in The Patriot, an obscure Indian newspaper. The letter stated that the United States was moving its lab operations to Pakistan, thus putting the Indian people at greater risk.

To support the war in Ukraine, the Russian government is deploying a new generation of technology and tactics to support cyber influence operations. And, unfortunately, especially when pursued with patience and persistence, these cyber influence operations are almost perfectly positioned to take advantage of the longstanding openness of democratic societies and the public polarization that is characteristic of current times.

The Russian government currently is deploying an expanding cyber influence operation to support its war efforts in Ukraine. These appear to be focused on four distinct audiences.

• They target the domestic Russian population with the goal of sustaining support for the war by portraying Ukraine’s military as responsible for the conflict.
• They target the Ukrainian population with the goal of undermining confidence in the country’s willingness and ability to withstand Russian attacks.
• They target American and European audiences to diminish Western unity and deflect criticism of Russian military war crimes.
• And they target nonaligned countries to support Russian efforts at the United Nations and in other venues, combining longstanding narratives demonizing democracy and Western intentions and with emerging efforts to blame the west for potential food shortages.

Agencies across the Russian government are targeting each audience in textbook fashion through cyber influence operations. 

The tactics developed by the KGB over several decades are nowadays combined with new digital technologies and the internet to give foreign influence operations a broader geographic reach, higher volume, more precise targeting, and greater speed and agility. 

For instance, this approach was applied beginning in late 2021 to support the Russian false narrative around purported bioweapons and biolabs in Ukraine. This narrative was first uploaded on to YouTube on November 29, 2021, as part of a regular English-language show by a Moscow-based American expatriate who claimed that US-funded biolabs in Ukraine were connected to bioweapons. The story went largely unnoticed for months.

On February 24, 2022, just as Russian tanks crossed the border, this narrative was sent into battle. A data analytics team at Microsoft has identified 10 Russian- controlled or influenced news sites that simultaneously published reports on February 24 pointing back to “last year’s report” and seeking to give it credence. Russian- sponsored teams then worked to amplify the narrative on social media and internet sites more broadly.

The two graphs below show that consumption of narratives from Russian-controlled and -sponsored sites across the internet rose sharply in both Ukraine and the United States in the initial weeks after the war began. The surge in Ukraine represents an increase of 216 percent, while the spread of Russian propaganda in the United States increased by 82 percent.

Using internet data and these techniques, it’s also possible to identify the social media, search, and other sites that are being used to encourage and channel traffic to these stories. And it’s possible to identify, as shown below, the specific reports and narratives that attain the highest consumption levels in specific geographies and time periods.

Conclusions

The lessons from Ukraine call for a coordinated and comprehensive strategy to strengthen defenses against the full range of cyber destructive, espionage, and influence operations. As the war in Ukraine illustrates, while there are differences among these threats, the Russian government does not pursue them as separate efforts and we should not put them in separate analytical silos. In addition, defensive strategies must consider the coordination of these cyber operations with kinetic military operations, as witnessed in Ukraine.

• The first defensive tenet should recognize that Russian cyber threats are being advanced by a common set of actors inside and outside the Russian government and rely on similar digital tactics. As a result, advances in digital technology, AI, and data will be needed to counter them.
• Reflecting this, a second tenet should recognize that unlike the traditional threats of the past, cyber responses must rely on greater public and private collaboration.
• A third tenet should embrace the need for close and common multilateral collaboration among governments to protect open and democratic societies.
• And a fourth and final defensive tenet should uphold free expression and avoid censorship in democratic societies, even as new steps are needed to address the full range of cyber threats that include cyber influence operations.

The war in Ukraine provides not only lessons but a call to action for effective measures that will be vital to the protection of democracy’s future.

Check out the full version of the report, Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War.

The Warsaw-based matchmaking platform for startups and investors, Vestbee, has prepared the CEE startups funding report for Q1 of 2022. AIN.Capital shares key points.

• During the first quarter of 2022, a total of 233 funding rounds were closed (only 170 are fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, participating investors, and company details):
  • In January, the startups collectively reached more than €1 billion in funding over 63 rounds,
  • €350 million over 62 rounds in February,
  • €250 million over 43 rounds in March.
• The total amount of financing raised in Q1 2022 reached €1.6 billion. It is €0.6 billion more than in Q4 of 2021.

• Among the countries to have received the majority of funding are:
  • Poland — closed 98 rounds with a total of €250 million in funding,
  • Estonia — closed 36 rounds with €920 million,
  • Romania — closed 16 rounds with €160 million.
• Despite the war, Ukrainian entrepreneurs have managed to rank fourth with 13 financing rounds closed in Q1 2022.
• The biggest investment rounds belong to:
  • €628M in Series F raised by Bolt, an Estonian transportation and food delivery service.
  • €120M in Series D closed by ICEYE, a Finnish spacetech developing and operating radar imaging satellites.
  • €110M in Series D secured by ProductBoard, a Czech product management system.
  • €89M in Series B raised by Payhawk, a Bulgarian financial company.
  • €89M in Series C secured by Veriff, an Estonian online identity verification company.
• Among the most active investors were Startup Wise Guys, Early Game Ventures, Karma Ventures, Presto Ventures, and Specialist VC (United Angels VC). Followed by Credo Ventures, Vitosha Venture Partners, Inovo Venture Partners, Accel, and Earlybird Venture Capital.
• During Q1 2022, the most appreciated industries were: e-commerce, FinTech, Data & Analytics, AI, SaaS, Advertising, and Big Data. The previous leader — Healthcare fell out of the top priorities this year.

More about the Baltic startup scene performance in the first four months of 2022 you can read in a report AIN.Capital published earlier:

• The Baltics startups have closed 57 deals and raised €1.3 billion in investments in the first four months of 2022. This is €0.5 billion higher than the amount raised during the same period of the previous year.
• According to the Baltics startup scene report 2022, most of the deals happened in the e-commerce, software, and FinTech sectors.

• During the period from January till May 2022, seed deals dominated — there were nine pre-seed, 28 seed, six Series A, six Series B, and later deals closed.
• At the same time, the average size of seed and Series A rounds have increased compared to the same period in 2021: seed — from $900,000 to $1.6 million, Series A — from $8.7 million to $25 million.
• Series A and later rounds were executed every month. The tendency shows that the ecosystem is transitioning from seed to Series A and later companies. The largest deals were the following:
  • $100 million Series C raised by Estonian identity verification startup Veriff in January 2022;
  • €9.1 million secured by Estonian enterprise forensics platform Binalyze in February;
  • $45 million Series D closed by Estonian developer of an AI-based CRM Glia in March;
  • $100 million raised by Lithuanian cybersecurity firm Nord Security in April.
  • $65 million Series A closed by Lithuanian fintech kevin. in May.
• Three startups closed Series A rounds within only eight months from their seed:
  • Vilnius-based fintech kevin. has secured $65 million;
  • Estonian e-commerce compliance platform Eurora has raised $40 million;
  • Tallinn-based Montonio Finance has raised €11 million.
• In the first four months of 2022, three new unicorns appeared on the Baltics startup scene: NordVPN, Glia, and Veriff.
• According to the report, 75 different foreign funds participated in funding Baltic startups including Tier 1 funds Index Ventures, Tiger Global, Burda Principal Investments. OTB, Accel, OpenOcean, and ff Venture Capital were the most active ones. 

Study: There were polled 803 visitors to AIN.UA. They answered closed-ended questions online and showed their positions in the open-ended ones. Following are the results of the survey.

• According to the results, 69.7% of the respondents stay in Ukraine and don’t plan to leave.
• Only 22.3% of them left Ukraine after the start of the full-fledged war. However, only 8% of the respondents planned to relocate.

• For 61.5%, the decision to move is directly connected with military activity. At the same time, 30% of participants wanted to leave earlier, and the war only supported their decisions.
• 8.5% of those who left were relocated with the help of their employers. It’s worth mentioning that some Ukrainian companies ensured the relocation of their employees with families to European countries.

• During the martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine, there are restrictions for men from 18 to 60 years old to leave the country. According to our poll, 58% of the participants would stay in Ukraine if they could. Only 42% of male respondents want to leave.

• Among the most popular countries for relocation are Poland (18.1%), Germany (11.9%), Spain (11.6%), and others (39.9%).
• The least popular countries are Moldova, Slovakia, Estonia, Romania, and Bulgaria.

• 59.8% of respondents said they would return to Ukraine after the war.
• 26.6% could not give an exact answer.
• 13.6% decided to stay abroad forever.

Some of them shared their stories with us:

“I left during the first hours after the war started, together with my family. At that moment, men might leave the country. I am going to go back to help rebuild our country.”

“We planned our journey because of my employment at a foreign company. But the war happened a few days before we completed all the paperwork needed to leave, so we missed our chance to go through before the borders were closed. So now we must wait. But the worst thing is that I can lose my job because there is no remote work option. I think it is a kind of discrimination to forbid only men to leave the country. I am the only person in our family who generates income, not de jure but de facto. After the end of this war, I want to leave forever because I always wanted to move to a place where citizens and community values are at a higher level than here.”

“I believe that it is necessary to work out some conditions for men to leave and support the country economically. It could be mandatory monthly payments. But giving a choice to men on how they can defend their country is the right thing to do.”

“I have not left although I wanted it. My employer offered me to go to Poland, but we couldn’t leave after the border was closed for men. So we moved from Kharkiv to Chernivtsi. After the end of the war, I don’t want to leave if I will survive. However, if there will be a good job opportunity, I could try.”

I have a document that gives me the right to leave the country right now. Besides, I have a place to go. But I’m staying here because it is my country.

“I am an IT entrepreneur, a co-founder of a startup. At the beginning of the war, we left Kyiv for Lviv, stopped working on the startup, and focused on developing a shelter for refugees. But right after the end of the war and the opening of the borders, we will migrate to the United States or Canada because we realize that it will be very difficult or even impossible to attract investments to Ukraine in the next year. And we only have one chance before we run out of money. By the way, I am from Donetsk, and in 2014, I was forced to migrate to Kyiv.”

The list below includes only export-oriented companies or so-called outsourcers. We didn’t consider product companies in purpose, although it is a large industry at the moment. AIN.Capital also didn’t include big Ukrainian R&D offices of international product companies in the rankings even though this part of the IT industry grew up as well. For example, EVOPlay would belong to TOP 5 if we unified the rankings: it already hired more specialists than Ciklum — over 3,500 people.

For this rankings, AIN.Capital surveyed the largest companies to get actual figures for 2021. Then, we compared it with the rankings of DOU for winter 2021. We considered only local companies, excluding offices of international companies. That’s why, for instance, SoftServe, with total personnel of over 12,500 people, has a 1,000 less number on the list. The only company that refused to give figures was Grid Dynamics. In the first half of 2021, they reported about 1,000 workers, but according to the summer DOU rankings, this number is 1,249 specialists. There was no news about discharges at Grid Dynamics, so we used precisely that number in our study.

The list confirms that the hierarchy of Ukrainian outsourcing companies hasn’t changed — EPAM, SoftServe, GlobalLogic, Luxoft, and Ciklum. Only SoftServe is 100% Ukrainian; the rest are international or subsidiaries of big holdings. However, you can freely buy shares of EPAM, GlobalLogic (Hitachi), and Luxoft (DXC Technology) on stock exchanges and become their stakeholders. If we were making a general list, 5th place would be taken by EVOPlay with its 3,500+ employees in Ukraine: it has grown by 1,404 persons over the year.

To imagine this growth, you may simply compare the following: TOP 5 companies had in winter 2020 about 27,000 specialists altogether. Today the TOP 2 companies have the same number of employees, and five leaders grew to 40,000. It means 50% growth.

Most importantly, all companies plan to continue to grow. That means they have thousands of open positions right now. For example, SoftServe states that it plans to grow by another 4,000 people in Ukraine and globally in 2022. NIX plans to hire 2,000 people in a year. Currently, there are over a thousand job openings at EPAM, SoftServe, and GlobalLogic.

An important thing here is that Ukrainian companies have started their expansion in new regions. In 2021, the Ukraine-largest outsourcer — EPAM — announced opening a branch in Odesa and offices in Kherson and Khmelnytsky. Four new locations have been reported by SoftServe. Intellias also planned to open an office in Dnipro, its 6th R&D office in Ukraine.

Along with new locations, companies are making plans to increase the number of employees. If some representatives of Ukrainian IT announce their intentions to attract hundreds of additional specialists, then the top 5 largest companies talk about thousands of new team members. In 2022, most of them plan to continue their strategy of entering new regions of Ukraine.

The IT industry in Ukraine enjoys dynamic growth, and the pandemic just accelerated this process. According to the IT Ukraine study, the export revenue for 2021 was $6.8 billion, compared to $5 billion in the previous year, and nobody forecast growth of over 20%. And it continues: IT businesses hire more specialists, get more clients, and attract them to Ukraine. For example, the French fintech Qonto creates a team in Ukraine supported by local WeSoftYou.

The biggest obstacle here is, without doubt, the politics of our Eastern neighbor country. The escalation of the situation with Russia leads to planning for the case of war instead of strategic development planning. Even a small potential risk of that results in changed decisions of customers that tend to outsource their projects in other countries than in Ukraine.

But things like the overheated market and different legal initiatives from the government are much less critical and easier to solve for the industry.

You can find professionals to expand your teams by posting job openings on Recruitika. It’s easy and absolutely free. Or look for new employees in the Candidates section, where new resumes are posted daily.

How the structure of the tech industry has changed

• Since 2015, the number of companies in Lviv has constantly been growing — over the past six years, their number increased by 328. Today 511 IT companies are operating in Lviv.
• About half of them employ more than 250 employees.
• During the last six years, the number of IT professionals has grown from 13,000 to 30,000.
• The average age of Lviv’s IT specialists is about 29 years.
• The share of technical specialists is 76%, non-technical — 24%.
• Among respondents, 92% are from Lviv, and 48% have moved from other regions or countries.
• In the past six years, the median monthly salary of tech professionals in Lviv has increased from $1,500 to $2,102. About 80% of respondents said their income is now higher compared to 2020.

The main economic indicators

• The survey results show that the share of the IT industry in Lviv’s gross domestic product (GRP) was 20% over the last six years.
• The IT industry turnover is growing every year: from $280 million in 2015 to $895 million in 2020.
• The overall economic impact has doubled in the last five years, from $734 million in 2015 to $1.4 billion in 2020.
• The IT industry has created 73,000 jobs, and each IT professional generates about three more jobs.
• The total tax revenue from the IT industry in Lviv from 2015 to 2020 was over 2 billion UAH.
• The single tax revenue from the IT industry represented 38% of the total Lviv tax revenue in 2020.

How COVID-19 affects Lviv’s IT industry

• Among the respondents, 63% of companies are positive about engaging new employees and customers in 2020.
• The survey shows the following attitude towards vaccination: 76% of the surveyed have a positive attitude toward COVID-19 vaccination, only 5% — against the vaccination, and 67% of respondents have been fully vaccinated. The most popular vaccine among the respondents is CoronaVac (33%), in second place is Covishield / AstraZeneca (26%), and third is Pfizer (23%).
• Forty-seven percent of those surveyed had been exposed to COVID-19.
• Thirty-seven percent of the respondents plan to return to work completely from the office.

There are 70 companies in Ivano-Frankivsk that employ over 2,600 people

• Half of Ivano-Frankivsk’s tech professionals work for companies that have offices in Lviv.
• The median salary in Ivano-Frankivsk is $1,339.
• Twenty-eight percent of specialists are young people who have been working in the industry for about a year.
• A quarter of the respondents have been working in the IT industry for 1-3 years.
• And another quarter have been working for 3-6 years.

Why do we need this? Such studies help businesses to know the labor market better. The salary surveys allow specialists at both sides of the recruiting process to evaluate their expectations more fairly, without cognitive distortions.

How was the study conducted? The editors of AIN.UA conducted an anonymous survey. There were over 4,000 participants. By analyzing their results, we calculated salary medians of those interviewed and classified them into four categories:

1. Business: CEO · COO · GM/Admin director · Product Manager · Project Manager · Product Owner · Scrum Master · Producer · Marketing Manager · Affiliate · SEO · ASO · PPC · PR · SMM · Sales Manager · Business Developer · Analyst · Data Analyst · Business Analyst · Data Science · Researcher · Support/Call center;
2. Development: Software Engineer · DevOps/Unix Admin · QA Engineer · UI/UX Designer · Cyber Security · DBA · Sys.Admin;
3. Content: Writer · 2D/3D Artist · Graphic designer · Sound designer · Video designer;
4. Special & Administration: HR · Recruiter · Finance Manager/Accountant · Lawyer · M&A specialist · Scout · Fundraiser.

After getting and analyzing the answers, we created detailed infographics about how the rate depends on the expertise, knowledge, and carrier for each position mentioned in the survey. The calculation includes the fixed part of salary in USD after taxes.

Portrait of respondents

The Fall 2021 Salary Survey had 4,176 specialists participating. Most of them are men (78.1%). Out of those, 41.6% work in the field of Software Engineering. As in the previous year, the most popular industry among women is marketing (21% of female participants). The median participant age is 31 years.

Salary medians

Business

Product Owners, Game Designers, and Data Scientists have the highest median salary among Senior-level business professionals. According to the survey, it is $4,000 what is much higher than last year. The most vital start position is a Business Analyst with the $1,100 median salary at the Junior–level position.

The median salary of a Junior Marketing Manager increased to $800. SMM managers earn significantly less than other marketing positions at all three seniority levels. The numbers also confirmed that Junior and Middle SEO and PPC specialists who have had almost similar incomes are still equal. But on average, Senior SEO professionals earn 25% more in all cities of Ukraine. In Kyiv, the median of Senior-level SEO and PPC is the same.

The highest salary in the marketing field — $5,600 — belongs to the Marketing Manager. And the highest income named by SEO is $5,000.

The salary median of Junior Sales Managers has increased a bit compared to the previous report: from $567 to $600. But the Senior-level median has not changed — $1,500, although the maximum Sales Manager salary mentioned was $5,000. It is worth remembering that most sales managers have a fixed rate included in the calculations. But they also get bonuses and premiums more often, and we will recur to it further.

Check out job openings for Product / Project manager, Producer, Marketing Manager, SEO, Affiliate, PPC, PR, Analyst, Sales / BizDev, Support / Call Center

The median pay of Support/Call center workers is the same — $800. However, those who use English earn almost double as much as Ukrainian or Russian-speaking employees. Even more, the salary median of English-speaking professionals grew by one-third, and now it is equal to $1,600.

C-level

The highest salary among C-level specialiis much more common at large is much more common at large, successful companies). The GM median income is $6,300. While CEOs (at very young startups and big corporations), it is $4,750. The CTO’s median is a bit higher — $5,000. By the way, the medians of GM, CEO, CMO, and CPO have remarkably increased, and the CTO median has not changed.

For example, the median salary of the CMO is $2,800. It is less than the medians of the CPO ($3,500) and COO ($3,700). In total, the R&D companies have the highest C-level median ($8,000) and retailers the lowest — $1,000. It can be explained by an increased number of small businesses in retail. This time, the median of C-level respondents from product and outsourcing companies is $5,000.

There were only 16% women among the C-level participants. Their median income is $3,100 or 38% less than by men.

In addition, 29% of interviewed CEO/COO/GM/Admin directors worked in product businesses. One-fourth of the survey participants were developers, 13% and 10% worked in Marketing and Sales correspondingly before they got to C-level.

Check out the job openings for CTO / Architect, CEO / COO / CMO / CPO / CIO and the collection ?C-Level

Special & Administration

The salary medians of Junior HR and Recruiters decreased to $550, but in the case of Senior-level, it increased from $1,500 to $2,175. The medians for all Senior-levels (HR, HR Generalist, Recruiter) are similar: between $2,000 and $2,250. Product companies offer higher salaries for recruiters and HRs than outsourcing businesses.

Big-sized companies also pay HRs and recruiters more than small enterprises. For example, the salary median in companies with 1,500+ employees is $1,400, and it is two times more than in the case of companies with 21-50 people. Most of the Junior Recruiters who participated in the survey are from small companies, while Junior Recruiters who work for large businesses comprised only 10%.

Check out the vacancies for HR / Recruiter, Legal, Accountant

Financial and account managers have medians at the Junior and Middle levels increased to $678 and $1,000 correspondingly. However, the Senior-level median has not significantly increased compared to the last year. The work with international financial issues gives much more than the business only in the Ukrainian market: $2,200 and $635.

The lawyers have a similar situation. Those who work with both Ukrainian and international legal issues earn more ($2,600) than the local Ukrainian specialists ($1,200). In general, there is a positive trend concerning the lawyer salary medians, especially in the case of Junior Lawyers — $700 (instead of $350 in the last year).

The median of Senior M&A and Fundraising went down to $2,300, and for Middle increased to $1,484. It is a fun fact that the maximum salary of all survey participants in that category was $7,000. This person participated in 40 due deals per year, while other specialists said they have participated in 6 due deals on average. In addition, two-thirds of respondents stated they get bonuses for their primary job. Another third has additional income from freelance and part jobs.

The Kyiv salary median of Special & Administration is 38% higher than the national salary median. However, the salary in Kharkiv is 10% higher than in Kyiv.

Content

In the Content field appeared a new leader: now Senior Video designer has the highest median — $2,650. The leader of the previous report, 2D/3D Artist, has lost not so much. The Senior-level median is $2,550. For Junior 2D/3D Artists, the salary median decreased by 40%, and now it is equal to $600. Junior Writers have the same median. But in the case of experienced Writers, it has grown to $1,250 at the Senior-level.

Based on the information collected during the survey, specialists with at least two years of experience can pretend to get Middle-level jobs. The average work experience of Middle-level specialists is four and a half years. To be promoted to the Senior-level, they need to work at least 3.5 years more.

Check out the job opportunities for Copywriter, Artist 2D / 3D, Designer UI / UX

Development

The most popular programming language is JavaScript; it is used by 24.4% of the interviewed professionals. The second popular is PHP (15.9%), and the third is Java (12.8%). Finally, C# got fourth place. JavaScript is also the most popular second language. TypeScript and SQL are following it.

Job openings for developers using JavaScript, C / C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Kotlin, Swift and frameworks Node.js, React Native, Angular, Vue.js, .NET, Laravel, Yii2

There is no secret that after summer 2021, the developer salaries have increased. According to the survey, the highest median is by Ruby Engineers — $4,225. Java, Python, and TypeScript Engineers also have high pay — the median is $4,000.

The highest median among Middle Developers belongs to Kotlin developers — $3,300. PHP and Unity languages demonstrate the lowest median for the Senior-level. The salaries of programmers who use Swift got lowered at all seniority levels compared to the last year.

Here are the medians for several languages depending on used libraries and frameworks:

• C# developers on .NET — $4,000, and Unity — $2,775.
• JavaScript programmers who work with Angular.js earn $3,200 on average, and in the case of React.js — $4,450.
• PHP on Laravel ($3,475) brings 30% less than PHP on Symfony ($5,000).
• Salaries of specialists with Python on Django and Python on Flask became merely equal — $4,750 и $4,250 respectively.

The survey confirmed that the programmer salaries do change depending on their roles. So the highest median for the Senior-level is by the Embedded developers – $4,500. The difference between seniority levels for Front-end and Back-end developers is low. The Full Stack developer median is a bit higher — $4,300 at the Senior-level. There is a big gap between the System Developer on the Team Lead position and other developers on that position. The Team Lead System Developer median is $5,700; the closest comparable median has Team Lead Mobile Developer — $5,050.

Job openings for Back-End, Front-End, Full-Stack developers

The gap in salaries between the Ukrainian cities is shortening. Now the Kyiv developers earn $4,000. The foreign programmers have the same median salaries. In Odesa, the median is about to achieve the Kyiv level — $3,900. You can see the medians over $3,000 in the half of Ukrainian cities: for example, Dnipro ($3,550), Ivano-Frankivsk ($3,400), Lviv ($3,760), Chernivtsi ($3,500), and Kyiv suburbs Boryspil and Brovary ($3,200).

In other regional capitals, the salary median is not lower than $2,000. According to our calculations, the weakest medians are Lutsk ($2,000), Kherson ($2,220), and Khmelnytskyi ($2,200).

There is a remarkable growth in QA salaries. So, the general median in that field is $2,240. Senior Automation QA — $4,000, Senior General QA — $2,950, and Manual QA — $3,000. We can confirm the observation that a QA who uses programming languages (with a median of $2,525) earns 30% more than testers without that kind of knowledge (with a median of $1,800).

One-fourth of the interviewed testers do QA Automation, and half of them do manual testing.The most popular language among QAs is Java (16.3%), and the second popular is JavaScript (13.7%). The share of QAs who don’t use any programming languages is 46.5%.

System Administrators earn less than their colleagues. E.g., a Senior System Administrator earns $1,400 on average. At the same time, the salary median of Senior DevOps is $4,000 what is comparable with the Senior Back-end programmer income.

Middle and Senior UI/UX Designers earn 15% more than 2D/3D Artists. Compared to the previous salary report, Senior UI/UX Designers got a raise of the same 15%.

Check out the openings for QA / QC, QA Automation, Manual QA

Freelancers

2% of the respondents said that they are full-time freelancers. To calculate salary medians by profession, we multiplied the hourly rate by the number of working hours per month and got medians.

Freelancers work 120 to 160 hours a month. The exact numbers were in the 2020 report. One hundred sixty hours was the most common answer.

In this category, most professionals work in the Software Development and Marketing fields. The salary median of the first is $2,250. In the Marketing field, it is $900. It’s fun to know that the most successful freelancers are UI/UX Designers ($2,700) who work 90 hours a month on average. On the other hand, Data Analysts make a bit less — $2,640. The SMM managers have the lowest median. By working 50 hours a month on average, freelancers earn $816 in social media.

Check out the jobs for freelancers in the Remote collection

Other observations

Bonuses and options

5% of the respondents confirmed they have options and shares. 46% of them have C-level jobs; 19% are Team leads. Another survey of AIN.UA says that the employees often get options from startups and starting from the first year of work. Although it is not a prevalent practice in Ukraine, most of the respondents choose options instead of bonuses.

Speaking of bonuses, they are traditional for Sales Managers and Fundraisers. The highest bonus median is by C-level specialists — $2,000, then sales managers $1,000, lawyers $800 (30% of them confirmed having bonuses), and fundraisers $750.

The extras are rare for developers and QAs, and the median is about $200-$300.

Salaries by English proficiency level

Compared to the previous survey, the English level has not grown. Although about 34% of the interviewed has the Upper-Intermediate English proficiency level, only 8% have fluent English.

According to the study, knowing English (at least at the Intermediate level) helps techies receive a higher salary. A Junior with English gets an additional $100-$150. The difference for a Middle developer is significantly higher: the Upper-Intermediate level ensures a double income compared to those with Elementary English.

For non-technical jobs, English is crucial for Juniors. If you are fluent in English, you can start with the median of $1,000, and if not, then only $450.

Now let’s compare the correlation between English knowledge and salary in different professions.

• On average, a Senior HR with Pre-Intermediate English earns $1,200 (like a less experienced Middle HR with Upper-Intermediate). The median for Senior HRs with Advanced or Fluent English is $2,850 and $3,000 respectively.
• Almost the same picture you can see in Marketing. Junior Marketing Manager with Pre-Intermediate can have $475 and with Upper-Intermediate $740.
• A Senior developer with fluent English can expect a median salary of $5,250. Without knowing the foreign language, even an experienced programmer cannot jump over $3,700.

Salaries by industry

29% of the respondents work in e-commerce. The second place belongs to FinTech. Last year, GameDev was in third place, and now it lost its position against HealthTech, Gambling & Betting, and DataTech industries.

After analyzing the answers, we could determine a tiny difference in the salary medians based on the industry that can feel only the Senior-level technical professions. For example, the Senior QA median in GameDev is $2,325. And in FinTech and e-commerce, it is $3,500. The Senior Software Developer median in e-commerce is $4,050. The same specialists who work in Game Development can get $4,875.

Salaries by education

The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv graduates get the highest salaries among technical professionals based on the received data. The Senior-level technical specialists (Software Engineer, QA, DevOps, UI/UX Designer, Cyber Security, DBA, SysAdmin) is $4,700. Speaking of non-technical jobs, the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute graduates have the highest income ($3,000 at the Senior-level).

The best-paid Junior specialists have graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a median of $1,100 for technical jobs. The leaders by non-technical salary medians among Juniors are graduates of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

The lack of higher education impacted only the Junior level of technical professions: the salary median is $600 (the lowest median among technicians). Such inequity disappears with higher seniority.

Check out job openings for graduates or people starting an IT career in the No Experience in IT and Junior Friendly collections

Salaries by company size

Our previous salary survey showed that the remuneration depends on the company’s size. In general, the bigger the company is, the higher the salary. Our new survey also partly confirmed that trend. So we can be sure by saying that the C-level salaries depend on the company’s size.

Check out vacancies at Ukrainian startups in the Startup collection

But we also can provide you with some exceptions. For example, the Junior QAs have similar incomes working for businesses of different sizes. The most common medians are $640-$665 and $875. But it is not growing with the company’s size; it’s chaotic and can go up and down. For Software Developers, the median grows to 501-800 employees. For more extensive personnel, it gets even lower a bit. A similar picture is usual for Junior Sales Managers: their rate grows to 201-500 employees, and then it noticeable falls.

Salaries by company type

Product and Outsource have almost identical salary medians for technical professions. But in the case of Senior-level non-technical positions, the Outsource wins. The highest median for technical occupations is in the R&D offices ($4,950), and the lowest is in tech departments of non-technology businesses ($1,800). The lowest median for Junior-level non-tech jobs is provided by retailers ($500).

It confirms the previous survey. Unfortunately, we must admit that non-technical specialists of specialized agencies have the minimum income. Therefore, although the salaries for Juniors have increased, the Seniors still have the lowest income compared to other company’s types — $1,500.

Check out the job openings of Ukrainian product companies in the Product collection

By conducting the extensive anonymous salary survey, the team of AIN.UA contributes to a more transparent labor market. Business representatives can now learn the compensations, and specialists can evaluate income by over ten criteria. Moreover, the study aims to determine a suggested salary for most of our openings on recruitika.com, where you can find over 7,000 technical and non-technical jobs.

Over the two years of the pandemic, the IT industry in Kharkiv has grown by 29%, and its total sales in 2021 are expected to amount to $1.5 billion, ensuring a 53% growth compared to 2019.

Kharkiv vastly outnumbers the country’s other IT locations in terms of IT companies and IT specialists, second only to the capital. As far as the concentration of IT professionals is concerned, Kharkiv is just as strong as Kyiv.

Over 95% of IT industry sales are exports of IT solutions and IT products to the markets of the USA (78%), European Union countries (15%), and Israel.

Some of the major industries in which Kharkiv companies have been offering their IT services for the last two years include healthcare, e-commerce, education, insurance, and retail. Kharkiv IT companies are traditionally just as strong in developing services for media, entertainment, gaming, banking, fintech, telecom, logistics, and manufacturing industries.

In recent years, the IT industry has become a leader not only in terms of foreign exchange earnings but also in terms of the volume of taxes it generates.

Based on KPMG’s estimates, the volume of all taxes received by the country on account of the Kharkiv IT industry will reach almost 12 billion hryvnias in 2021, and this number will grow up to 16 billion by 2026, according to the baseline forecast. The event put an increased focus on the Diia City project and its implementation.

An average IT professional’s compensation in Kharkiv is an equivalent of $2,260.

Every IT specialist creates 3.5 workplaces. So, the powerful IT community in the Kharkiv region alone enables an additional 160,000 people to secure full-time jobs in different industries, from building residential and office spaces to providing domestic services to maintaining shops, schools, and kindergartens.

Currently, over 50% of the IT specialists are still working remotely, as lack of office spaces becomes a problem once again. The report data suggests that only 10% of category А and В office spaces are vacant, and by 2026, the IT industry might need an additional 200 thousand square meters of office space. 

The full report can be viewed by clicking here.

Research: AIN.UA readers anonymously answered closed- and open-ended questions. The poll involved 275 people. The results of the survey are below.

As the results of the poll show, the easing of quarantine restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the majority of employers in Ukraine returning employees to their offices.

• 32.7% of the respondents said that their employers have partially returned employees to the offices.
• 21.8% of the employers plan to do so. At the same time, 19.6% have completely switched to the office mode.
• 25.8% do not plan to return to the pre-quarantine format.

• Interestingly, 44.4% of the respondents are ready to give up part of their earnings to continue working from home.
• 28.3% of them would be ready to relinquish 5% of their income, and 18.3% of respondents would be willing to give up 10%.

• In addition to or instead of pay cuts, employees are ready to give up other benefits offered by their companies. For the sake of working from home, 59.2% of the respondents will sacrifice additional benefits (for example, health insurance, training courses, etc.)
• 5.3% would give up bonuses, 3.9% would give up days off, and 3.3% of the respondents would sacrifice vacation time.

Is remote working important to you and why?

“The workday is more efficient — there isn’t any hanging out with colleagues in the office that take up time, you can work longer and not worry about the time spent commuting. Also, I worry about my health.”

“The most suitable for me is the hybrid work model — working from home one or two days per week. I am ready to give up bonuses for such a format, but maybe I can do it because they are not available for me now.”

“It makes no sense to give up anything since I do the same amount of work, and my presence in the office does not affect productivity (even if it does, then negatively — productivity decreases due to distractions). The remote format works well — an employer gets an employee who is on time and does not depend on the situation on the roads; no need to organize the workplace, pay for electricity and Internet, no need to order water/tea, coffee, and snacks; When working from home, employees are less sick, since they interact less within the limited office space.”

“It gives more freedom, especially if you have a certain amount of work and can decide on your own when and at what time to do it.”

“Remote working is important because it saves time you usually spend getting to the office. In my case, it is 2.5 hours a day — 1.5 hours of which I can spend on work and an hour for personal needs. However, it is important to travel to the office at least once a week for team building.”

“I like to alternate between working from home and the office. Going to the office helps me stay in touch with my colleagues and learn about important company news. Remote working allows me to better focus on important tasks and get more done in a day than working in the office.”

At the same time, according to a survey conducted by the job search portal Jooble, 71.3% of employers are ready to consider the transition to a 4-day workweek as an experiment.

Attitudes of employers toward the shortened week

According to Jooble’s survey that involved 345 Ukrainian employers and was conducted between June 8 and July 8, 2021, the majority of respondents, namely 52.5%, believe it is realistic to introduce a 4-day workweek in Ukraine, while 47.5% do not agree with this idea.

However, many employers, 71.3%, would be willing to consider moving to a 4-day workweek at their company as an experiment. It’s about restructuring internal processes so that the product or service the business provides remains available to customers without change.

When asked about experimenting with schedule changes, 28.5% stated they are not willing to experiment with them. Among the key reasons for that are: this work format is not suitable for a company’s operations, it might reduce company revenues, it could slow down various processes within the company, or it might reduce control over employees’ work.

Prospects for companies and attitudes toward changing salaries

Among the possible prospects for companies to move to a 4-day workweek, most respondents, 72%, said it would give more freedom for employees to deal with personal issues. Furthermore, employers noted that it would help reduce companies’ office costs.

Eighty-seven point eight percent of employers surveyed by Jooble said they are ready to keep their employees’ salaries unchanged after reducing working hours, and 12.2% believe that it is logical to reduce them.

Salaries

The income range for business managers is as follows:

Hired CEOs have the highest salaries, starting from $4,200, with a median salary of $7,000. Founders who act as CEOs have the same figures. Country Managers and General Managers have the highest median salary ($7,875).

Age and gender ratio

Twelve female CEOs participated in the survey. Their median income is 40% lower than that of men.

The majority of the survey participants are between 30 and 39 years old. CEOs who are over 35 years old make 60% higher income on the median than their colleagues who are 30 to 34 years old.

The majority of respondents (62%) work in Ukrainian product companies. 18% and 14% of the respondents work as outsourcers and outsuffers at companies based in the US and Europe.

The product companies and outsourcing companies have the same median pay level of $7,000. From the 75th percentile onwards, there is a difference in income in favor of the CEOs of product companies.

There are also the following two trends on the market: the older the company and the larger the number of employees, the higher the salary of the C-level managers. For example, at companies that have been operating for 10-20 years, the median salary for a business manager is $8,250.

At large companies employing 201 to 800 people, C-level manager’s salaries are significantly higher than those of colleagues at smaller companies – starting from $5,275, with s median of $11,600.

Motivation and demotivation factors for CEOs

The results of the survey show that 44% of respondents are completely satisfied with their remuneration. Salary level ranks third among motivation factors. Freedom of decision-making is in the first place (69%) and professional growth – in second place (56%).

Notably, the salary level is fifth in the list of the demotivation factors. The top four demotivating factors are lack of professional growth and freedom in decision-making, lack of work-life balance and professional growth, and incompetent management.

Profile of a top manager

The research involved 294 C-level executives, including 188 male and 106 female CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, HRDs, CTOs, and COOs. The income gap between male and female executives was 40%. The median salary of men is $6,550, while the median salary of women is $3,900. The same trend was observed last year.

The majority of respondents are between 30 and 39 years old. According to the survey, the older a top manager is, the higher their compensation is. Executive managers aged 40 to 44 have the highest median salary of $7,000. It is noteworthy that respondents over 45 years old have lower median compensation than their younger colleagues, but the average figure among respondents is $8,108.

Industries

Most survey participants work in the FinTech and Banking industries – with a median salary of $6,000, E-commerce – $5,500, and Digital – $5,750. These industries have maintained the highest pay levels for three years in a row.

There are also the following two trends on the market: the older the company and the larger the number of employees, the higher the compensation of top managers. For example, companies that have been operating for more than 20 years have a median salary of top managers of $6,250.

The research data show that small companies (up to 20 employees) have the same high level of compensation as big companies (up to 200 employees) with a median salary of $5,000. Analysts identify two reasons – in young companies the decision on the amount of remuneration is usually made situationally by a founder or CEO. Often they entice experienced top managers by the level of remuneration.

Over the last year, their number increased by 29,111 people (16%).

The most popular KVED (type of economic activity) among IT-PEs remains 62.01 Computer Programming – this code is listed as the main type of activity for 143,549 people. During the year, 19,500 people registered this code as their type of economic activity.

The second and third most popular KVEDs are 62.02 Computer consultancy activities and 63.11 Data processing activities with 30.6 and 25.9 thousand IT specialists, respectively.

The largest number of IT-PEs is in Kyiv and Kyiv region. The top 5 regions are traditionally Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa.

AIN.UA has picked the most interesting insights.

Key figures and facts in the Ukrainian Tech Market Overview 2021

• Ukraine enters 2021 with a 20% IT Services market growth rate and over 200,000 tech specialists to meet the increasing global demand for software engineers. About 85% of tech professionals have at least an intermediate English proficiency level.
• According to various sources, there are between 3,000 and 5,000 IT companies in Ukraine. The government’s Tech Ecosystem Overview lists 1,142 product companies and 858 service vendors in Ukraine. Over 92% of Ukraine’s tech businesses have switched to remote work just a few weeks after the government enforced a strict quarantine.
• 2019 marked the largest funding rounds in the history of the Ukrainian IT sector. Gitlab, owned by an entrepreneur from Kharkiv, raised $268 million, topping the most massive investments for 2019. Grammarly has closed a $90 million round of funding the same year. People.ai, the predictive sales startup, raised $60 million. The Restream startup, founded in Vinnytsia and incorporated in Austin, USA, has raised $50 million during the Series A round in 2020. Among other Ukrainian startups that have been drawing the global tech scene’s eyes in recent years are Reface (raised $5.5M in 2020) and Looksery (acquired by Snap Inc. for $150M in 2015.)

• The 2020 Global Outsourcing 100, published by The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, includes 13 Ukrainian companies and eight companies with Ukraine offices. 68 Ukrainian tech companies made it to the 2020 Clutch Top 1000 list, representing only the top 1% of all B2B enterprises in the Clutch catalog.
• According to Clutch.co, the prime spheres Ukrainian IT vendors work in are eCommerce, Enterprise, and Finance.

Main Target Markets

According to the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) report, the export of IT services in 2020 increased by 20.4% against the previous year, totaling $5.03 billion. The tech sector’s growth contrasts with the overall decrease of Ukraine’s goods and services export of 4.6% in 2020. IT is the most exported service in Ukraine, with a share of 8.3% in the country’s $60.4 billion export of goods and services. 

The main clients of Ukrainian vendors remain the United States and Western Europe, including Great Britain and European Union countries. While different sources provide diverse statistics, it is clear that the USA remains Ukraine’s largest R&D partner (45% of research companies).

The EU is the second-largest market, with the UK, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden as primary consumers. According to the Almega report, the digital skill shortage in Sweden is about to reach 70,000 by 2022. Therefore, the demand for Ukraine’s IT from Nordic countries is growing too, with Sweden and Denmark taking the lead.

More than 100 Fortune 500 companies have chosen Ukrainian IT services. Ukraine is home to more than 100 R&D centers owned by or working with global companies, including Google, Samsung, Siemens, and Huawei. Many of them have significantly expanded the number of employees or/and opened new offices.

Tech Talent Pool Overview: skills, salaries and more

• According to the Ukrainian Tech Market Overview, the vast majority of tech talent and companies concentrate in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa. Different surveys conducted in 2018-2019 years show that 67% of IT specialists live in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv, and half of all Ukrainian tech companies are registered in Kyiv. Among the most actively developing midsize tech cities are Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, and Kremenchuk.

• JavaScript is the number-one programming language in the Ukrainian development community. Over 18% of software engineers use it as primary in 2020, and more than 41% named it their additional programming language. 2020 was the first year when JavaScript has outrun Java. The latter has been experiencing negative dynamics in the last three years, which corresponds to the worldwide trend.
• Except for JavaScript, the languages that have shown a significant growth rate in recent years include Python (34% growth since 2017), TypeScript (55% growth since 2018), and Kotlin (67% growth since 2018).
• When it comes to frameworks and libraries in use, React.js, Node.js, and Angular.js are the top three in the popularity chart. .Net and Spring are the closest pursuers.

• According to the Ukrainian Tech Market Overview, in 2020, the average software developer salary in Ukraine fluctuated between $780/mo at an entry-level and $4,000/mo at a senior level. A mid-career developer typically earns from $1,500 to $2,600 per month, which amounts to 18K-33K USD annually.
• The average monthly salary of a senior software engineer in Ukraine is $4,000, with this number rising to $4,550 and $5,600+ for the Tech/Team Lead and System Architect roles, respectively.

In terms of hourly developer rates, Ukrainian outsourcing companies typically charge around $25-$40. For comparison, the average outsourcing rates in neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic are $40-$56 per hour and $34-$53 per hour correspondingly.

• With the median monthly salary of $4,000, senior back-end developers are the highest paid in 2020. The lowest-paid position is Junior Front-End Coder; this specialty’s median salary rate is $730/mo.
• The most in-demand IT professionals in Ukraine are front-end experts followed by QA, PHP, and .Net developers — their share in the overall number of DOU openings is 35%.
• Regarding the salary-programming language correlation, Scala developers earn the most ($4,770/mo median salary). Simultaneously, the lowest-paid competency is 1C, with the median salary just under $1,700 per month.
• C developers are the highest-paid among the Junior specialists, with the median salary in this category reaching $1,200/mo.
• Developers with less than a year of experience earn around $600 per month. In contrast, the median monthly salary of tech specialists with 10+ years of experience exceeds the $4,200 mark. After the first year of working on one or several software development projects, a programmer will likely get a salary increase of 35-40%. Mature specialists with a professional background of 10 years or more usually receive a lower yearly increase of 5-6%.

The majority of IT professionals (82%) in Ukraine are content with their salary. The level of compensation satisfaction is higher among senior specialists. Over 40% of system architects and tech leads mark their satisfaction level as fully content. Most dissatisfied with their salary are system administrators, support officers, Junior QA, Junior developers, designers, and marketing specialists, making about 18% of respondents in the DOU.UA survey.

Most IT specialists in Ukraine are happy with their work: over 18% find their current projects enjoyable, almost 40% see their work interesting. About one-third of professionals consider their routine rather interesting than not.

What’s next in the Ukrainian Tech Market?

Ukrainian IT is skyrocketing despite epidemical and political woes. According to the Ukrainian Tech Market Overview, the tech sector has become a significant contributor to the country’s economy as the 3rd largest exporter of Ukrainian services.

The export volume of the IT Services market has increased by 157% in five years, while the talent pool has expanded by 34% for the same period. According to the PwC forecast, the IT industry’s market size will reach $8.4 bn worth of export and 242,000 tech specialists by 2025.

Diia City, a free economic zone for creative economy representatives that the Ministry of Digital Transformation is working on, offers high prospects to investors. Eventually, it will enable domestic and foreign tech companies to open businesses and R&D centers in Ukraine under simplified procedures, to operate according to the English Law, and pay 10% of distributed profit tax. The project is expected to double the tech market’s size to $11.8 billion and the number of jobs to 450,000.

You can find the full report here.

Portrait of Ukrainian game dev

The majority of the surveyed game developers are men (70% vs. 29%). 41% of them are middle and senior-level specialists:

The majority of respondents work in Kyiv, and many are also employed in Lviv and Kharkiv:

The majority of respondents chose to work in the game development industry because they are passionate about computer games:

Working conditions and salaries

Depending on the specialization, the respondents have different types of employment. Artists, for example, equally work from the office or remotely, whereas top managers prefer to work in an office.

Over 55% of the respondents said that, in general, they were satisfied with the conditions of work (but there are shortcomings). 29.4% are more than satisfied, 13.4% of respondents are not completely satisfied with the conditions, and 1.5% are completely dissatisfied.

Top employers

The survey participants indicated that factors such as project, salary, and team were very important to them:

The respondents mentioned salary (24.7%), completion of a project (22.04%), and lack of opportunities (19.76%) as the most frequent reasons for leaving the company.

If to consider median salaries in the industry, the actual earnings and expectations of professionals correlate as follows:

According to the participants’ responses, the ranking of the top employers looks as follows:

• Annual revenue growth in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Belarus slowed from 20-25% to 10-15% amid the pandemic but began to grow rapidly in the fourth quarter.
• The revenue of 5 CEE players out of the 50 largest IТ service companies exceeded $100 million, 6 others exceeded the mark of $200 million. Among the companies with offices in Ukraine are Epam, Luxoft, GlobalLogic, and SoftServe.

• The total volume of IT exports generated by Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Belarus is over $18 billion.
• The total number of IT professionals in the region is over 660,000.
• The annual number of tech graduates is more than 60,000 people.
• Number of mergers and acquisitions in 2015-2020 – 137; in 2020 – 29.

Among the major deals for 2020-2021 in Ukraine are:

• Sigma Software acquired the Kharkiv-based outsourcing company IdeaSoft. According to AIN.UA, the transaction amounted to $1.5 million.
• The US company Cprime acquired the Ukrainian Archer Software. According to experts, 100% of the company could be valued at $5-8 million.
• SARS Capital invested in the outsourcing company S-PRO.
• Grid Dynamics acquired the technology company Daxx.
• IT company Ciklum raised strategic investments from the technology investment platform Recognize Partners.

What is its purpose? Such studies help businesses navigate the labor market. And for specialists, they make the salary market more transparent and allow them to assess themselves objectively without cognitive distortions.

How was the study conducted? The editorial team of AIN.UA conducted the anonymous survey among more than three thousand respondents. We calculated the respondents’ median salaries and grouped them into four categories: Business, Development, Content, and Special & Administration. Each category comprises the following groups of professions:

1. CEO · COO · GM/Admin director · Product Manager · Project Manager · Product Owner · Scrum Master · Producer · Marketing Manager · Affiliate · SEO · ASO · PPC · PR · SMM · Sales Manager · Business Developer · Analyst · Data Analyst · Business Analyst · Data Science · Researcher · Support/Call center;
2. Software Engineer · DevOps/Unix Admin · QA Engineer · UI/UX Designer · Cyber Security · DBA · Sys.Admin;
3. Writer · 2D/3D Artist · Graphic designer · Sound designer · Video designer;
4. HR · Recruiter · Finance Manager/Accountant · Lawyer · M&A specialist · Scout · Fundraiser.

Next, we analyzed how the remuneration changes depending on expertise, knowledge, and work history and shared our conclusions on each position. Finally, we compared our results with DOU, Serpstat, and Indigo salary surveys to get the most objective and weighted result. It is important to note that the calculations were carried out on a fixed part of salary in USD after taxes.

Portrait of responders

In total, 3,116 respondents took part in the first AIN.UA salary survey. Most of them are men, mainly employed in the field of Software Engineer (39%). The most popular profession among women is Marketing Manager (24.2%). The median age is 30 years.

Median salaries 

Business

Product Owners and Product Managers (no matter how different they are in various companies 🙂 get the highest median salary among business professionals. According to the survey, it amounts to $2,500.

The median salary of a Junior Marketing Manager is $535. Nonetheless, marketers with more than five years of experience earn three times the amount. Interestingly enough, the salary for this position in Kharkiv is higher than in Kyiv, $1,450 and $1,200, respectively. Business Analyst has the same tendency with $2,000 in Kyiv against $2,800 in Kharkiv.

The median remuneration of Affiliate and PPC is at the same level with $1,225. SEO earns 10-15% less with a median salary of $1,000. Be that as it may, the maximum salary among respondents employed in these professions is: SEO – $5,100, PPC – $3,500, and Affiliate – $4,000. It should be noted that SEO, PPC, and Affiliate contain two large niche flows: specialists working in high-risk niches – their conditions exceed the median; and those who work in all other niches – their conditions are inferior to the median.

Check out job openings for Product / Project manager, Producer, Marketing Manager, SEO, Affiliate, PPC, PR, Analyst, Sales / BizDev, Support / Call Center

Support/Call center has the lowest median amounting to $800. It is particularly remarkable that among specialists in the field, those for whom the primary language of service is English earn more – $1,200. It is twice what their counterparts operating in Ukrainian and/or Russian are getting.

C-level

According to the survey, General Manager and CTO are the highest-paying jobs. With a median salary of $5,000, they surpass the median of CEO at $4,000. It is due to the fact that GM is a position in an established company and CEO – both in very small startups, significantly inferior to GM, and in large established companies, significantly surpassing GM. But while in the case of GM most of the responses are centered around the median, CEOs’ responses range from strongly inferior to highly superior to the median. Product companies pay $500 more than outsourcing companies for this position.

The lowest median salary has a CMO with $2,300. It is inferior to CPO with $3,400 and CIO with $3,000. However, these specialists earn more in product companies – $3,700. At the same time, in some outsourcing companies, salaries are 20% lower.

Remarkably, a quarter of all CEO/COO/GM/Admin director respondents were previously employed in the Product area. Software Development accounted for 20% of all respondents, Marketing – 17%.

See jobs for CTO / Architect, CEO / COO / CMO / CPO / CIO or the C-Level collection

Special & Administration

Among HR/Recruiter specialists, HR Generalist has the highest median of $1,400. The median salary of Recruiter and HR is $1,000. Meanwhile, employees of product companies earn more. It is also interesting that HR earnings in Kyiv are 30% higher than that of Recruiter. It is probably due to the fact that 30% of a recruiter’s salary are bonuses.

Practicing both Ukrainian and international law, a lawyer can make more than what they would make if they practiced only one of the two. Such specialists’ median salary is $2,260 (only Ukrainian – $900, only international – $1,800).

Check out openings for HR / Recruiter, Legal, Accountant

The same is true for financial managers and accountants. Handling international finances, you can earn $2,050 while managing both international and Ukrainian finances can get you $2,000. At the same time, specialists working only in the Ukrainian segment receive less, with a median salary amounting to $620.

Among M&A and Fundraising, specialists with 3-4 years of work experience receive more. Simultaneously, for Junior specialists, the median salary is $700, and for Senior – $2,800. The median salary of Middle professionals is on par with the lawyers and amounts to $1,100. The highest remuneration among the respondents of this category is $5,000.

It should be noted that the salaries of Special & Administration in Kyiv are 15-25% higher than in other cities of Ukraine.

Content

Of all the respondents working in the content field, 2D/3D Artist, a profession endemic to the game development industry, earn the most. Their median remuneration amounts to $1,500. At the same time, the figure is relevant for both outsourcing and product companies. A writer has the smallest median of $735, but with 4+ work experience, you can count on a salary of $1,300.

Interestingly, Middle Graphic Designer earns 30% less than Middle UI / UX Designer (median of $1,000 versus $1,450, respectively). The gap between the Senior level in the same professions is twofold.

Check out openings for Copywriter, Artist 2D / 3D, Designer UI / UX

Development

The survey has shown that JavaScript is the most popular programming language. It is used by 26% of the surveyed specialists. PHP is in second place with 15.2% followed by C# with 11.6%. Together with TypeScript and Python they form the top 5 additional languages for those for whom they are not the primary programming languages.

Check out jobs for developers in JavaScript, C / C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Kotlin, Swift and frameworks Node.js, React Native, Angular, Vue.js, .NET, Laravel, Yii2

According to the survey, Java Engineer has the highest median at $3,700. Ruby, Python, and Swift Engineer also receive high salaries, with a median of $3,500. At the same time, in the Senior category, Unity developers earn the least with $2,500. C Engineers have the lowest median salary regardless of the level in the company – $1,650.

• Interestingly enough, C# on .NET specialists get on average $200 more than C# on Unity specialists with a median of $2,700 versus $2,500, respectively.
• There is a noticeable difference between JavaScript on Angular.js ($2,500) and JavaScript on React.js ($3,025).
• PHP on Symfony specialists ($3,800) get three times of what PHP on Laravel ($2,650) specialists get.
• The salary of Python on Django specialists is higher than of Python on Flask specialists with a median of $3,200 versus $1,250.

Depending on the role, Arhitect JavaScript Engineer has the highest salary of $6,000. At the same time, the median salary of Arhitect Java Engineer is $5,800. Junior Front-end specialists have the lowest median, amounting to $700.

See openings for Back-End, Front-End, Full-Stack developers

In terms of cities, IT specialists from Lviv get the highest salaries with median salary amounting to $3,500, Kyiv ($3,200), Kharkiv ($2,925), Ivano-Frankivsk ($2,500), Ternopil ($2,350) and Odesa ($2,000). At the same time, the median salary of a developer working outside Ukraine is $3,565.

Interestingly enough, the median of Java Engineer in Lviv is comparable and even exceeds the Kyiv median with $4,080 against $4,000, respectively. A significant difference is seen between JavaScript Engineers in the capital ($2,500) and Dnipro ($3,200). Moreover, in Lviv, the median of the latter is $3,500.

Among testers, Java is the most popular language. It is used by 17% of specialists in the field. At the same time, 44% do not work with programming languages at all.

Automation QA specialists have the highest salary at $2,675. General QA specialist’s median is almost twice as high as that of Manual QA specialists with $2,600 versus $1,400, respectively. Interestingly, a tester who uses languages is paid 30% more. On the other hand, a QA specialist working on Python earns 10% less than the one working on Java and JavaScript.

Check out jobs for QA / QC, QA Automation, Manual QA

QA specialists with 3+ work experience earn on average $2,000. In turn, the remuneration of testers in Kyiv is higher than in other cities of Ukraine.

Freelancers

Among the readers surveyed, 5% were freelancers. In order to calculate the median salaries by profession, we multiplied the rate per hour by the number of working hours per month for each of them and deduced the medians.

The analysis showed that most often freelancers work from 120 to 160 hours per month. Most of the respondents in the sample are engaged in SEO and Marketing. The median salaries of these specialists were $1,600 and $1,000, respectively. At the same time, freelance developers earn the most. For example, the median salary of Fullstack PHP developers with 3+ years of experience is $2,100. Overall, Software Engineer’s median is $2,400. Data Analysts get the same level of salary.

Writers have the lowest median salary. Working an average of 80 hours per month, freelancers earn $550.

Check out jobs available for freelancers in the Remote collection

Other observations

Bonuses and options

Only 1% of the surveyed specialists are owners of the company’s stock options. Those who own them are predominantly C-level specialists, less often – Team leaders. Earlier, AIN.UA already conducted a survey on the topic, according to which options are more often issued in startups, starting from the first year of operation. Even though this practice is not common in Ukraine, most respondents would still prefer options over cash bonuses.

In terms of bonuses, HR, Marketing Managers, and Sales Managers receive them most often. Despite this, the highest median at the C-level is $1,500, followed by sales – $600. Interestingly, large companies are more likely to give employees a bonus. Thus, 36% of respondents working in teams of 1,500+ people receive bonuses regularly.

Salaries based on English proficiency

Among all respondents, more than 34% speak English at the Upper-Intermediate level. At the same time, Software Engineers most often know the language at the Intermediate level. Remarkably, only 8% of respondents are fluent in English.

Knowledge of English significantly affects the salary. The study has shown that having an Intermediate level and above in non-technical professions helps earn at least $200-300 more. For example, a marketing manager’s median salary with Elementary English is $650 versus $1,800 with Advanced English. HRs with Pre-Intermediate get 15% lower remuneration than colleagues with Upper-Intermediate.

For developers, English affects salaries starting at the Middle level. The salary gap of Software Engineers with Elementary and Advanced English is a mere $25-35. On the other hand, the Middle Software Engineer’s median remuneration with the Upper Intermediate level is $2,500 versus $1,500 with the Pre-Intermediate. The gap is even more significant for Senior Developers with Pre-Intermediate and Advanced and amounts to $1,500.

Among testers, the highest median salary of Automation QA specialist with the Advanced level is $3,200, and the lowest for Manual QA specialist with Pre-Intermediate is $600.

Salaries by industry

A quarter of the respondents who completed the survey are employed in the E-commerce industry. At the same time, without C-level, Product Managers with work experience of 4+ years have the highest median salary in the industry at $2,300. Among FinTech representatives, Software Engineers earn the most with $3,000.

Arguably, the industry does not affect the amount of remuneration. For example, FinTech developers are paid on par with their counterparts at GameDev. The same applies to non-technical professions.

Salaries by university

The survey has shown that graduates of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute get the highest salaries. The median remuneration of technical professionals (Software Engineer, QA, DevOps, UI/UX Designer, Cyber Security, DBA, Sys.Admin) at the Senior level is $4,300. At the same time, among the Juniors, graduates of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv get the highest salaries. Remarkably, the remuneration of respondents without higher education is equivalent to the remuneration of their counterparts holding a degree.

Among non-technical professions, graduates of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute also have the highest salaries. Graduates of the Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics have the lowest median salary.

Check out the positions relevant for university graduates or those, who want to start a career in the IT industry: No experience in IT and Junior Friendly

Salaries by company size

The size of remuneration also depends on the size of the company. In general, the larger the company, the higher the salary of its employees. However, there are exceptions. For example, a Junior QA Engineer in a company with up to 20 employees gets more than when a team has 100 to 200 people. The same tends to be true for Junior UI/UX Designers whose median salary in a company with 50-100 employees is higher.

Check out openings at Ukrainian startups in the ⭐Startup collection

Salaries by company type

In general, salaries in product and outsourcing companies are somewhat at the same level. It is true for both technical and non-technical professions. Senior Software Engineers at a product company have the highest median of $4,200. Specialists working for specialized agencies get the lowest salaries. In particular, a Junior Developer’s median salary is $450, while a beginner marketer’s median salary is $400.

Take a look at openings at Ukrainian product companies in the ?Product collection

AIN.UA · DOU · Indigo

In this section, we have compared our median salaries across some professions with other industry reports. In particular, with the latest reports from the Ukrainian community of DOU developers (a survey among developers/testers/other professionals), a salary survey of the Indigo recruitment agency (a survey among Product Roles/Project Managers/CMOs), as well as the AdTech report of the Netpeak Group.

It makes it possible to obtain more weighted and accurate data and analyze in detail the salaries of Ukrainian professionals in terms of positions and specializations.

By conducting a sizeable anonymous salary survey, the AIN.UA team helps create a more transparent labor market. Based on its results, business representatives can navigate the salary issue, and specialists can assess their remuneration level across more than ten criteria. The study also aims to determine the ‘suggested salary’ for most positions in our recruitika.com section, which already contains more than 1,200 offers for technical and non-technical professions

The research. In total, 2,512 people participated in the poll. They answered the close-ended questions asked by AIN.UA concerning changes in salaries.

Changes in the fixed salary

• According to 56.1% of respondents, the coronavirus crisis did not affect the fixed salary or remuneration of employees.
• 9.4% of employees have a quarter reduction in fixed salaries, while 9.3% completely lost their income.
• 8.4% of respondents began to earn by 50% less, and 3.2% of the respondents managed to retain only one-fourth of their previous salary. 
• 4.7% of respondents faced with a slight pay cut (10%). There are also cases of income reduction by 5% and less.
• Some employees were put on unpaid leave for an unknown period. However, a small percentage of respondents stated about such cases.
• There are a few cases of an increase in salary and income. In particular, this is due to a reduction in the number of working companies and competition.
• Delays in payments are quite common.

Some companies have used alternative methods. There are cases when companies have set new tasks to employees, have tied the salary to a dollar rate, or paid just percent from sales. Employees claim that this is the way to cut wages.

As the quarantine has been extended, the financial situation of businesses is getting worse. While in the first month of the quarantine, companies cut employees’ salaries, now they make decisions on staff cuts and layoffs.

How did the variable pay change?

The variable pay includes bonuses, benefits packages, and other additional payments. The poll also showed what happened to the planned pay rises and how companies supported their employees.

• 58.6% of respondents did not feel the impact of the crisis. The number of additional payments to salaries remained unchanged.
• For 17.5% of respondents, the total income became lower as the employer cut or canceled the reward program.
• 13% of respondents will receive less than the promised pay rise, and some were denied the previously planned raise. Companies are also cutting benefits packages.

Some companies have paid a one-time bonus or reduced the load, as support. There are cases where part of the benefits package has started to be paid out with cash.

Outsourcing and product companies: who was more affected by the crisis

In total, about 1% of the Ukrainian IT market answered the questions. The impact of the coronavirus crisis on salaries was described by employees of product companies (43.1%), outsourcing and outstaffing companies (15.7%). The research showed that the crisis affected the developers less, as according to 71.9% of respondents. It is noteworthy that layoffs in product companies have more affected women.

The quarantine had the worst effect on designers. Almost 40% of respondents polled about layoffs and cut salaries in half. Women were more affected – in 30% of cases, employers cut their employees, while the number of men amounts only 12%. The same trend is observed in sales.

The respondents’ replies suggest that most tech market participants are preparing for a drop in demand and planning to optimize their business. Not everyone will be able to avoid such unpopular measures as layoffs and salary cuts.

Respondents

Mainly, the respondents of the survey were medium-sized outsourcing companies (with less than 100 employees) and international product companies. Large outsourcing companies and Ukrainian product companies account for the remaining third.

After the quarantine was announced, most of the office teams began working remotely: almost 80% of the respondents transferred all their staff to telework. Just 3% continue working from the office.

Anti-crisis measures

• 51.6% do not announce new job openings,
• 45.2% cut office rent expenses,
• 38.7% save on team development (training, team building),
• 35.5% plan to save on salaries,
• 22.6% save on marketing,
• 9.3% work as usual, not yet decided on their action plan and would navigate the situation as it develops.

Among other measures are transitioning to online training, sales intensification, and even the strengthening of the team with new skilled professionals.

Layoffs, dismissals, salaries

Most of the companies do not plan to part with their teams. Just 15% intend to reduce staff.

Moreover, the majority of companies (72%) do not consider the option to put their employees on unpaid leave. Such measures will be taken just by 12% of the respondents.

Pay cuts

More than half of the interviewed companies are not going to reduce their employees’ salaries. On the other hand, 22% of the respondents said they would cut staff remuneration. A further 25% took a wait-and-see approach.

Besides, 3% of the respondents said they would reconsider their employees’ salaries set in foreign currency, against the backdrop of its appreciation.

Customer attrition and drops in income

The new situation pushes companies to revise their terms of business. It turns out that almost half of the companies will negotiate new terms, for example concerning discounts and other fees.

Companies are forced to give up many projects, including those related to IT services. Most of the respondents either have already lost some customers or predict this.

The situation in sales is similar: the majority of the companies either already acknowledge or anticipate a downturn.

The company has analyzed job searches in the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine, and concluded that the number of available job offerings has declined, but not drastically. The activity of job seekers themselves, though, has dropped significantly.

The world

Businesses respond to the pandemic with staff cuts, unpaid leaves for personnel, and salary reductions. Global prospects appear bleak: the International Labor Organization estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic can raise the number of unemployed people by almost 25 million worldwide.

However, as shown by Jooble’s job search statistics, the actual dismissal rate is below the expected level. Instead, the interest in job search from candidates has decreased by 50%, and that is just for the last three weeks.

There is a clear correlation between the decisions of different countries’ governments on the introduction of strong quarantine measures and the decline of the vacancy search activity.

On the other hand, while the number of available job offerings (that is, vacancies available on a particular calendar day) does not stay the same in most European countries and the USA, it declines slower than candidates’ job search activity.

It means that people stop seeking jobs faster than companies dismiss employees and reduce workforce.

The largest numbers of available job openings are in the British and Canadian markets – in the fields of project management, software development, business development, and accounting. In Italy, Spain, and Germany, the demand for salespersons and support agents, mechanics, drivers, warehouse workers, and administrators is very high.

There are also some changes in how people look for jobs during the quarantine. For example, in Spain, instead of the request “cleaning,” people type in “hospital cleaning.” In Italy, the request “child care” gave way to searches for delivery jobs, and in the UK, “medicine delivery driver” grew to be the second most popular search input.

Another trend is moving online. In addition to traditional online tutoring and freelancing, people now seek opportunities to transfer any skills from offline to teleworking. This is how requests like “online fashion stylist” or “personal online coach” appeared. Candidates are willing to do almost any work online to find a source of income during these hard times.

Ukraine

Whom employers look for

Compared to the same period in 2019, the number of job openings in wholesale and retail trade has risen by 58%. Most of these job openings were posted before the quarantine imposition but remain available, nevertheless. Now, if comparing February and March of 2020, the analysts have noticed no serious changes in this segment.

As against February, in March there appeared noticeably more vacancies from companies which offer transportation and delivery services. The number of job ads in this sphere has increased by 13%. Couriers and drivers have become in high demand recently.

Popular requests

People keep searching for jobs during the quarantine. Candidates try to predict the labor market needs. For example, according to Jooble, the number of requests “taxi driver” increased by 22% between February and March.

People have come to seek delivery jobs more. During March, the number of searches for this kind of work from candidates rose by 91%.

Popular job offers

During the quarantine, the job offers with most views and responses have been:

• courier,
• call center operator,
• translator, copywriter,
• driver,
• taxi driver.

Last year the selection was completely different:

• long-haul truck driver,
• factory handyman,
• administrator.

Which searches became less popular

March has seen the number of security guard job queries decrease by 25%.

People have also searched less for sales manager jobs. The searches for this vacancy dropped by 23%, as against February.

People have become less interested in working in Poland. During March the number of queries in this segment declined by 21%.

Demand for remote work

Ukrainians have begun to actively seek remote jobs. The number of telework search queries has soared by 240%.

The most popular queries from candidates as of March were:

• tester,
• recruiter,
• call center operator,
• SMM manager,
• accountant,
• translator.

Key facts

The total funding volume into the Ukrainian IT industry was record-breaking in 2019. For the first time, total investments surpassed a $0.5B mark, totaling $544 million.

More than 75% of this amount was raised as late-stage funding rounds by three companies:

• Grammarly – $1+ billion last round valuation ,
• GitLab – $2.5 billion valuation,
• People.ai – $0.5 billion.

The volume of deals in the early stages did not change compared to 2018. The total amount raised Seed and A Rounds funding accounts $44 million.

The Ukrainian product companies have made exits for a total of $478 million. Most of the exits are up to $100 million, while startups evaluated above this amount remain private companies.

Deals of 2019

The authors of the overview collected all public deals made in 2019 and ordered them by the sum raised. The result you can see in the following table:

They also separately showed the investments of software development companies. The amounts of deals are not disclosed.

Active investors

Most investments in Ukrainian startups were made by foreign investors at both seed and growth stages.

Currently, the public portfolio of Ukrainian investment firms for today looks as follows:

Top tech companies in Ukraine

AVentures Capital also selected the largest product companies with most international revenue and top e-commerce companies in Ukraine.

The report dated by February 14, 2020, shows that the export of IT services from Ukraine increased by 15%. Now it equals 16% of the export of all services, which brought $15.23B to the country.

In percentage terms, the export of IT services was distributed as follows:

• 79.2% ($1.92 billion) – export of computer services;
• 16.3% ($395.5 million) information services;
• 0.5% ($110.6 million) – export of telecommunications services.

The import amounted to $495.8 million. Computer services represent the largest part of imports – $275.3 million.

According to the research, in Kharkiv, there are almost 500 product and service tech companies, and the number of IT specialists exceeds 31,000 people.

The industry in the region has grown by 24% compared to last year. And in terms of money, it was evaluated at $962 million in 2018 (compared to 2017, this figure increased by 20%).

The main clients of Kharkiv IT businesses are companies from the USA and Europe.

The median income of IT specialists in Kharkiv is about $2,025, which is 6 times higher than the median income in the region.

In 2018, Kharkiv IT companies paid 6.4 billion UAH of taxes (last year, this figure was 5 billion UAH). 45% of these taxes went to the city treasurer. According to projections, under favorable conditions for the industry, these tax revenues will triple by 2025.

More than half of local companies are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees:

The participants of the research also mentioned the main reasons for moving to Kharkiv. The top reasons for moving to Kharkiv are quality education, growth opportunities, and developed infrastructure:

Under favorable market conditions, Kharkiv IT industry may reach almost $2 billion by 2025:

Ukrainians’ orders

• Ukraine entered the top 10 countries in terms of the total value of products bought on AliExpress in 2019. For the three quarters, Ukrposhta delivered more than 20 million items from China, most of them were from online stores.
• According to Ukrposhta, more than 30% of Chinese deliveries are products costing up to $2.
• The most popular categories are: “phones and accessories,” “electronics,” and “car accessories.”

Buyer’s profile

• Most often, the products on Chinese websites are ordered by Ukrainians aged 24-35 years. More than half of them are shopping on AliExpress via their smartphones.
• Products from AliExpress are in the highest demand among the residents of Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions. 56% of the ordered Ukrainian parcels from China, Ukrposta delivered to these regions.

The results were published on the ACC website.

• 82% of respondents plan to expand their business in Ukraine in the next 5 years.
• 84% of respondents believe that the Ukrainian state authorities are committed to further opening Ukraine’s market to foreign investment in the coming 5 years.

Ukraine’s most attractive industries to invest in

• agriculture – 85%;
• IT – 73%;
• energy and renewables – 45%.

Ukraine’s most attractive characteristic for investors

• talents – 51%;
• low labor costs – 51%;
• access to the European market – 44%.

Biggest obstacles for business in Ukraine

• courts – 74%;
• tax authorities – 51%;
• law enforcement agencies – 48%.

Rule of Law is top of the list of areas that requires urgent improvement.

Andy Hunder, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine

Also, in 2019 the number of those who see labor migration as an opportunity to get interesting experience has increased – they account for 27% compared to 18% in 2018.

• Respondents are ready to get additional education and learn the local language for this.
• There are fewer people who want to work outside their profession: 39% compared to 65% in 2018.
• And only 1 out of 100 respondents is not ready to make any compromises.

Where people want to go

The most attractive countries for relocation are Canada, the USA, and Germany.

19% of respondents would not mind working in neighboring countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, Czech Republic) and the UK, and 15% wouldn’t mind working in Spain.

The least attractive are the UAE, Portugal and the CIS countries. Only 6% of respondents would like to work in the first two, and CIS countries are of interest to only 3 out of 100 respondents.

One of the reasons for this increase is the increase in the number of smartphones. Now 22% of users go online exclusively from mobile devices. A smartphone in 2019 was the first and only device to exit online for a large share of new users. Almost the entire population of Ukraine under the age of 35 is Internet users.

The number of users

Internet penetration in the country as of September 2019 was measured at 71% (22.96 million users, i.e. those who claim to use the Internet once a month or more). 65% of the country’s population has Internet access at home (21 million people).

The quarterly growth dynamics of Internet penetration, starting in 2010, looks like this:

It should be borne in mind that until the third quarter of 2014, here are included data on the Crimea and the occupied territories.

Annual Internet penetration growth dynamics:

Portrait of a user

If we talk about a portrait of a Ukrainian Internet user, the largest age group of users is 25-34 years:

If you analyze the level of income and education of regular users, the following graph will be obtained:

Among the regular Internet users, the largest number are workers and specialists engaged in non-physical work:

60% of regular users are married or live with someone:

As for Internet access, for 66% of regular users, this is a mobile phone or smartphone. For another 40% – a home laptop, for 36% – a desktop, for 5% – a desktop at work, for 4% – a work laptop, for 1% – a computer at the place of study, another 1% – a computer in an Internet cafe, and for 1% – during visiting friends.

The study was conducted in August-September of 2019. Data was collected using interviews at the place of residence. 2,110 people were interviewed in total.

Market

There are 378 IT companies in Dnipro and the region. Almost 97% of the market accounts for small and medium-sized companies with up to 200 people. Moreover, every third developer works in a large company.

“Every fifth company has offices in other Ukrainian cities, every fourth – abroad.

The distribution by company type is as follows:

• 62.6% – service;
• 20.4% – product;
• 9.2% – start-ups;
• 4.2% – service and product;
• 3.4% – Global In-house Centers.

Developers

According to IT Dnipro Community, as of 2019, about 15,000 – 16,000 IT specialists work in Dnipro and the region. Among them, 72.8% are individual entrepreneurs, and 24.6% are full-time employees. Another 2.5% of specialists work in another form of employment.

The share of junior and senior specialists is approximately the same – 24% and 27% respectively. The largest share of middle developers is 45.1%. Another 3% are trainees.

Profile of a specialist

• Most of all in Dnipro and the region there are developers has Specialist or Master degree – 39% and 34%, respectively.
• The most popular educational specialty is “Information Technology”. About 39% of developers completed it.
• The most popular universities are Oles Honchar Dnipro National University (35.7%), Dnipro University of Technology (14.4%) and Dnipro National University of Railway Transport (6.9%).
• Half of the developers work in the industry from 3 to 10 years.

Taxes

Direct payments by the IT industry increased from 402.3 million UAH in 2016 to 631.2 million in 2018. Indirect taxes – from 550.4 million UAH to 934.1 million UAH.

According to the results of 2018, the turnover of the IT industry of Dnipro and the region amounted to $435- $452 million. According to IT Dnipro Community forecasts, this indicator will increase to $632 million – $1.09 billion in 2025.

Salaries

The average salary of an IT specialist in Dnipro and the region is $1,650. Revenues are distributed on average as follows:

• Trainee – $425;
• Junior – $627;
• Middle – $1,420;
• Senior – $2,435.

At the same time, project managers averagely earn $1,711, QA – $1,190, and other non-technical specialists – $986. The income of top managers – $2,570.

• The salary is reviewed once every six months or annually.
• Three out of four specialists save about 30% of their monthly salary.
• Every third developer is engaged in additional activities – freelance, development of his own project, teaching, etc.

Relocation

41% of developers consider moving to another country, 35% – to another Ukrainian city. 24% of specialists think of both options.

41% of junior specialists, 35% middle and 32% of senior developers think about moving to another city in Ukraine. The situation with relocating abroad is slightly different – 36% of junior developers, 45% of middle and 35% of senior are considering moving.

Among the popular Ukrainian destinations, there are Kyiv (70%) and Lviv (28%), foreign – the USA (30%), Germany (25%) and Canada (24%).

Education

There are 11 higher educational institutions and 35 colleges and technical schools which train IT-specialists in Dnipro and the region. The number of students of technical specialties in them is 13,900 people. By the end of the year, about 2250 developers from them will start working.

The most interesting market figures

• The most popular business model is SaaS (52%).
• Almost 77% of companies operate in b2b segments.
• 68.4% of R&D centers are located in Kyiv.
• Most of the companies’ revenue is generated by the Ukrainian market (39%). The US market is in second place (17%).

Labour market in Ukrainian MarTech and AdTech

• About 65% of companies have less than 40 employees.
• Approximately 25% of all specialists work in three companies: Depositphotos, Terrasoft, and MGID.

Ukrainian IT market in numbers

• ICT is the third largest exporter of services with a 20% share of total Ukrainian service exports.
• Ukrainian IT industry grows by about 26% year over year.
• There are about 4,000 IT companies operating on the market.
• There are about 1,600 IT service companies operating in Ukraine.
• The number of IT professionals surpassed 185,000 in 2018.
• According to experts’ projections, revenues in the IT industry will amount to $5 billion in 2019.

Human capital

According to experts’ projections, in 2019, the number of IT professionals in Ukraine will be about 200,000 people. Next year, the number of IT specialists will increase by 20,000.

Most of Ukrainian IT specialists live in Kyiv (68,500), Lviv (21,000), and Kharkiv (25,000).

Outsourcing

More than 60% of all the above-mentioned specialists are employed by IT outsourcing companies. At the same time, the number of startups (over 2,000 companies) and international R&D centers (over 100 companies) is growing.

Ukrainian outsourcers cooperate mainly with companies from the USA (81% of all service consumers). These can be both startups at the bootstrap stage and tech giants. Among the companies in an outsourcing portfolio of Ukrainians are isco, IBM, Atlassian, Travelport, OpenText, Fluke Corporation, etc.

Often, outsourcing teams that work for Western clients grow into full-fledged R&D centers for their clients.

Labor market

The IT labor market is growing rapidly.

• In 2018, the number of jobs posted on DOU has increased from 3,000 to 4,500 a month.
• The number of applications went up by 23% — from 270,000 to 330,000.
• The number of employers grew by 38% — from 2,400 to 3,300.
• The most in-demand IT specialists are Front-end, QA, and PHP, as these categories constitute 31% of all vacancies.

Ukrainian IT companies are actively increasing their staff and are opening offices in new locations. The most popular locations are Kyiv, Lviv, and Rivne.

At the same time, Ukrainian IT companies started working abroad and have been opening offices in Malaga, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Toronto, Turin, London, Bucharest, Eindhoven, Chicago, etc.

Methodology

The study is based on data from over 100 sources. Among them are PwC, Gartner, CBInsights, StackOverflow, The World Bank, Bloomberg, A.T. Kerney, DOU, EBA, IT Ukraine Association and others.

Portrait of a candidate for relocation to Germany

• 76% of them have higher education.
• 70% are males.
• Most often, relocate in Germany is sought by Ukrainians aged 31-40 years, in the second place – 18-30 years old, and the group of candidates aged 41-50 years old is on the third place.
• Almost three-quarters of jobseekers with a higher education who would like to work in Germany are professionals with more than 6 years of experience, and 14% have from 3 to 6 years of experience.
• Only 12% of candidates wishing to relocate to Germany know the German language.

Professional field of candidates

• The most active in looking for employment in Germany in 2019 were IT specialists (30% of CVs)
• Relocation to Germany is also of interest to top managers and marketers (10% of each).

Salary expectations

• More than a third are ready to move to Germany for a salary of up to €1,000.
• 30% were interested in jobs with salaries up to €2,000.
• Only 4% of applicants want a salary of at least €5,000.

It is interesting that, according to analysts, today working abroad is unpopular not only among those who have worked in another country and improved their financial situation but also among respondents who are barely making ends meet.

Profile of a labor migrant from Ukraine

In Ukraine, the majority of those who had experience working abroad and do not plan to return are men with families (about 70%) aged 25-34 and 45-54 years.

7 out of 10 employees live in cities.

The level of education is different for everyone: 41% of respondents have a complete higher education and 39% have only secondary education.

Reason for working abroad

Ukrainians leave to work abroad due to low salaries in a home country, lack of jobs. Many of those make their wish to see the world true.

Where did they go?

The main areas of labor migration for people who decided to stay in Ukraine:

• Poland – 33%,
• Russia – 35%,
• Germany – 11%.

How much did they earn?

Almost half of Ukrainians who do not want to return to work abroad for now received less than $1,000. Another 18% received up to $1,200.

Only 11% of those who do not plan to re-employ earned $2,000 per month.

Why don’t they want to return to work abroad?

About half of the employees abroad did not work in their specialty. Almost a quarter of dissatisfied respondents worked abroad in the construction sector. The second most popular industry is transport and logistics, mainly it was the driver’s work – 17%. Top 3 is closed with production – 15%.

Every fifth respondent admitted that he or she was disappointed with the work experience abroad.

The main reason why employees don’t want to return is psychological discomfort associated with moving and remoteness from relatives (42%). Also among the respondents, there are a lot of those who began to make good money in Ukraine upon their return (29%).

Another top reason is the high cost of living and food in other countries (16%). A quarter of the respondents had conflicts with the employer who had a negative attitude towards employees.

The rest were satisfied with the employer-employee relationship.

• There are more than 120 SaaS companies based in Ukraine or established by local teams. They employ about 4,000 people.Half of these companies are small enterprises with less than 30 employees. The list of all firms is provided here.
• Over the history of their existence, Ukrainian SaaS companies raised $550 million. Half of that amount comes from Gitlab and Grammarly rounds. 22.7% of companies didn’t raise any investments.
• More than half of these companies are located in Kyiv. Other popular locations include Odesa, Dnipro, and Kharkiv.
• Almost all companies (93%) are b2b or b2b/b2c.

The overview includes data from 58 market companies and their opinions on a number of issues. According to Chobanyan, the number of these industry players is much larger. For various reasons, “at least almost plus the same number of companies” are not represented in the report.

Most of the surveyed companies were founded in 2016 and later:

• 2014 and earlier — 8%;
• 2015 — 12%;
• 2016 — 20%;
• 2017 — 32%;
• 2018 — 12%.

Among the industries, the companies’ representatives of which have adopted blockchain technology are the following: software development (38%), finance, investment and trading (38%), as well as for cryptocurrencies (32%) (some companies have several founders from different industries).

78% of respondents are focused on Ukrainian and global markets, 16% are focused only on foreign countries. However, a quarter of companies have attracted investments.

Forklog emphasizes that according to a survey, 56% of companies estimate the level of business security in Ukraine as “normal”, 30% as “bad”, 10% as “devastating” (1 out of 5) and 4% as “good”.

“Nevertheless, 76% of market players are confident that new Ukrainian companies are more likely to be launched in other jurisdictions, 14% believe that new companies will not disappear from the Ukrainian market, another 10% believe that new projects in Ukraine will no longer be launched, and existing ones will move abroad,” Forklog published.

AIN.UA chose the most interesting talking points and graphics.

Top 10 deals of 2018

The analysts compiled the ranking of startups by the number of attracted funds for 2018. Among them are both Ukrainian startups and international ones, but with Ukrainian roots.

GitLab, a popular service for developers, which has attracted more than $100 million is in the first place. On the second place is BitFury, blockchain technology company of Vavilov and Podnebesnyi, which has received $80 million for further development. And People.ai is in the third place, with a $30 million deal in the fall of 2018.

Other companies that are in the top 10 are YayPay, DreamTeam, Restream, Busfor (in 2018, it raised $8.6 million from the Swedish foundation Vostok New), Preply, and Spinbackup.

Venture market: a new record – $337 million of investment over the year

According to UVCA estimates, for 2018, 115 deals (including non-public ones) were concluded in the venture capital market. Compared to 2017, total investments increased 13 times and reached $336.9 million.

The overall average ticket for a company was $3.2 million (excluding deals with undisclosed amounts). In addition, investments in startups at the seed stage rose to an average ticket of $918,000, which is almost 90% more than a year earlier.

Online services prevail by the number of deals, but in terms of the amounts of funds raised, software companies are ahead.

As for the exit, in 2018 there were 8 of them, which is two times less than in 2017.

In the angel investments segment, there were 7 deals for a total of $0.9 million.

Also, there were seven M&A deals (mergers, acquisitions), but the total amount is ten times higher – $25.2 million.

ICO Market

Over the past year, 4 successful fundraising campaigns have been registered in the Ukrainian ICO market: Rentberry, Remme, DreamTeam, and Creditor Data Platform.

In total, these companies attracted $58.3 million through the placement of tokens. This is three times less than in 2017 (more than $160 million were attracted by Ukrainian startups through ICO, in total, 19 successful placements were recorded).

The whole study can be viewed below: