Software development companies in Ukraine: Exploring the trends within the largest European IT market
What do Skype, Boeing, Bosch, and eBay have in common? In addition to billions of dollars in revenue and millions of clients worldwide, it is the choice of outsourcing location that unites the aforementioned companies. They were among the first to see the potential of software development companies in Ukraine.
Software development companies in Ukraine: number, size, location and industry focus
The number of software development companies in Ukraine has been growing steadily: from 940 software companies in 2009, 1050 software companies in 2011 to 1391 – 1650 software companies in 2020.
The number of software development companies in Ukraine
| Year | Number of software development companies in Ukraine |
| 2009 | 940 |
| 2011 | 1050 |
| 2020 | 1391 – 1650 |
The Better Regulation Delivery Office, Idapgroup, Escadra, and Inventure shared the following statistics:
Where are most software development companies in Ukraine located?
According to Inventure, there 5 main IT clusters where most software development companies in Ukraine are located: Kyiv (25+ companies), Kharkiv (73 leading software companies), Lviv, Dnipro (consists of 29 companies and 4 partners.), and Odessa (18 companies, 22 international partners and over 3,000 participants).
As approximately 60% of Ukrainian software developers are currently employed in outsourcing, that’s why it comes as no surprise that the majority of companies that export IT services are located in the cities with the largest talent pool. For instance, Kyiv hosts over 40% of all software development companies in Ukraine.
According to The Better Regulation Delivery Office Report, 51,7% of software development companies in Ukraine are located in Kyiv, 7,5% in Kharkiv, 6% in Dnipro and 5% in Lviv.
What is the average size of software development companies in Ukraine?
According to Clutch, there are 816 software development companies registered in Ukraine: 111 companies with 2-9 employees, 427 companies with 10-49 employees, 229 companies with 50-249 employees; 37 companies with 250-999 employees, 11 firms with 1,000-9,999 employees and 1 company – Luxoft with more than 10,000 employees.
Average Size of Software Development Companies in Ukraine
| Number of Employees | Number of Companies |
| 2-9 employees | 111 (13.6%) |
| 10-49 employees | 427 (52.4%) |
| 50-249 employees | 229 (28.0%) |
| 250-999 employees | 37 (4.6%) |
| 1,000-9,999 employees | 11 (1.3%) |
| 10,000+ employees | 1(0.1%) |
It is worth mentioning that many small software development companies (<20 employees) in Ukraine are web studios or tight-knit developer groups that work with one client.
The majority of the large software development companies operating in Ukraine are headquartered in other countries, including the USA, Israel, Denmark, and Switzerland.
R&D centers in Ukraine
According to UAPost, there are over 100+ research and development centers (R&D centers) in Ukraine. The largest R&D partner is the United States (45% of companies), followed by the EU and Israel. Areas of expertise of Ukrainian R&D centers include games, E-commerce, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, telecommunications, Internet, software development, and other fields.
More than half of the R&D centers are located in Kyiv. Other major research and development centers are located in Dnipro, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Vinnytsia.
Read more: Foreign Companies in Ukraine with R&D Centers
Key target market for software development companies in Ukraine
According to Ukraine Digital News, the United States remains the key target market for the majority of software development companies in Ukraine, taking up approximately 80% of exported IT services. The UK (64%), Germany (60%), and the Netherlands (41%) come next. The EU countries, especially the Nordic bloc, and Israel are also among popular export locations, which is no surprise taking into account geographical proximity and the lack of local resources in the given regions.
What is the main industry focus for software development companies in Ukraine?
The most popular business domains among software development companies in Ukraine are eCommerce (31%), finance (37,5%), education (19.2%), telecom (10.7%), and healthcare (32.5%), with most of the companies offering services in more than one domain.
What are the core web technologies used by software development companies in Ukraine?
The most used website development tech stacks among Ukrainian companies are JavaScript (18,4%), Java (15,4%), C# (13,7%), Python (13,2%), PHP (10,8%), C++ (5,8%), TypeScript (4,4%). CMS solutions, including Drupal and WordPress, are less popular.
Mobile app software development companies in Ukraine
There are 905 app development companies in Ukraine registered on Clutch with the biggest ones including:
As for the main focus in mobile development, most Ukrainian providers tend to focus on native iOS and Android development, with Android being slightly more popular. Hybrid and cross-platform solutions are losing their popularity among Ukrainian companies.
The main target audience for mobile software development companies in Ukraine is small businesses and startups: 51% of companies list these market segments as their primary focus areas.
However, there is vast expertise in enterprise-level projects: the clients of Ukrainian companies include Microsoft, AOL, Oracle, Citi, Cisco, and Intel.
Over 60% of companies specializing in mobile app development offer solutions for wearable devices as well. In addition to that, a significant amount of Ukrainian mobile development companies have expertise in IoT and AR/VR domains, and even Blockchain.
Game development companies in Ukraine
The game development market in Ukraine will reach $180 million revenue in 2021, with Ukraine ranking 3rd among Eastern European countries and taking 42nd place in the global rating. There are around 100 companies that specialize in mobile and video game development with the most famous ones: Plarium, Gameloft, Playtika, Ubisoft, Innovecs and others.
As mentioned before, the sector is growing quickly, boosted by high demand and interesting projects, and the number of professional game developers in Ukraine is also showing steady growth. A lot of game design and Unity 3D game developer schools are opening in the country to cater this demand.
According to the Data Unit City Report, 40% of game development companies in Ukraine have software development offices in Kyiv. Odessa takes second place with 16% (17 companies). Other popular cities among game dev providers are Dnipro (12 companies), Kharkiv (11 companies), and Lviv (6 companies).
Many software development companies in Ukraine run small game studios or even specialized training courses focused on game design and development. Unity 3D developers remain in high demand here, which goes some way to explaining why C# is the third most popular language among Ukrainian software developers with a 14.9% market share.
Prevailing business models among software development companies in Ukraine. How do they work?
Some of the most popular cooperation models used by software development companies in Ukraine are:
If you choose this model, your provider will handle all aspects of the software development project from scratch. Outsourcing companies usually offer end-to-end services, including project management. This means that the client doesn’t need to have tech expertise in-house to manage the process. Accordingly, all aspects of the development process are handled by the vendor with little involvement required from the client.
However, in a typical project outsourcing company, developers will work on several projects simultaneously, which results in lower developer engagement rate and poorer commitment to the project.
A dedicated team allows the customer to have better control over the software development process and leads to higher team engagement, mainly because the software engineers can focus on only one project.
At the same time, this model still doesn’t provide the opportunity for a customer to choose their own software developers for the project (usually you can choose only from a limited number of candidates provided by the vendor). Moreover, in this case, project management is usually handled by the vendor as well.
An extended team is an improved version of a dedicated development team. In this case, the team is assembled to specifically meet your project needs: you interview the developers and make hiring decisions by yourself. Moreover, you maintain full control over the development process: from managing your offshore team as if it were your in-house crew, to scaling up and down at any point of your cooperation.
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