Poland vs Ukraine: Software development industry comparison

The software development industry in Ukraine has reached the mark of over 200,000 tech specialists, with about 85% of them working in software development companies. The IT industry in Poland counts 295,300 software developers, 20% of whom are employed by companies that offer software development services.

Polish tech companies report increasing competition on the tech talent market. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, not only has the IT industry become one of the most favored employment destinations, but it has also become the 2nd export service industry projected to earn $8.4 billion by 2025.  

1. The employer competition in Ukraine is lower than in Poland. Partially because there are fewer R&D offices of tech giants that tend to offer programmers inflated salaries.

2. Most of the Ukrainian programmers have experience in providing software development services. Developers prefer working at tech companies that offer software development services rather than in businesses with their own digital products.

3. Working with Ukrainian programmers can save you 30% of the total development cost without sacrificing the quality of code. That is why many global companies choose to outsource tech talent from Ukraine rather than Poland.

4. Compared to Poland, the Ukrainian tech industry is more homogeneous. It’s got a greater number of outsourcing vendors that have accumulated deep expertise in providing software development services during the last two decades.

With more tech businesses outsourcing to Ukraine, the IT industry in the country has been experiencing rapid growth: in 2017 it grew by 20%, in 2018 — by 26%, and in 2019 — by 30%. In 2020, it’s expected to generate $5.4 billion and in 2025 — $8.4 billion, according to the predictions by UNIT.City.

• Read more about   the actual average software developer salary in Ukraine .

More than 700 business centers employ about 150,000 tech experts in the IT industry in Poland. By 2022, the industry is proposed to generate $13 billion in revenue. The software development sector is expected to grow by 7.2% annually, while the hardware industry will slow down to a 3.2% growth per year.

Ukraine has a strong educational base that allows it to grow its tech industry by 26% annually. Each year, about 30,000 students graduate from technical universities in Ukraine. As of 2020, there are about 200,000 tech specialists in Ukraine, including software developers, project managers, business analysts, quality assurance specialists, and other experts. It’s estimated that the market will increase to more than 250,000 tech workers by 2025.

Both Ukraine and Poland have been featured by Gartner, A.T. Kerney, and the World Bank among the strongest tech nations in CEE. According to the State of European Tech report, there are 4 developers per 1,000 people in Ukraine. A higher density of developers is seen in large Ukrainian tech hubs. In Kyiv, there are 11.7 software developers per 1,000 people, in Kharkiv — 9.7, in Lviv — 7.6, and in Dnipro — 4.8.

These are the cities with the largest numbers of programmers in Ukraine:

1. Kyiv — 37%
2. Lviv — 15%
3. Kharkiv — 14%
4. Dnipro — 8%
5. Odesa — 5%

On the international arena, Ukraine is known as home to such large tech companies as SoftServe, Intellias, Luxoft, Grid Dynamics, Epam, and GlobalLogic. These and other companies develop world-class digital solutions for multinational businesses such as Mercedes and BMW.

In Poland, there are 1.4 software development experts per 1,000 people. Just like in Ukraine, Polish software developers reside in large IT hubs — Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity, Łódź, Poznań, and Katowice. In contrast to Ukraine, though, the minority of polish software developers work in the software development outsourcing industry, so Polish software outsourcing has not reached its full potential yet.

The number of tech specialists and programmers in the largest IT hubs in Poland:

1. Warsaw — 65,600 
2. Kraków — 70,000
3. Wrocław — 47,500
4. Katowice — 23,700

The tech talent pool in Poland currently counts 295,300 tech experts, with only 20% of them being employed by tech companies that consider Polish software developers for outsourcing services to international businesses. The majority of Polish software engineers work in FMCG industries, tech product companies, and multinational tech corporations.

IBM, Google, Motorola, SABRE, Motorola, Fujitsu, and Delphi are the key players and trendsetters on the Polish employment market. The tech giants fuel employer competition and attract top tech specialists, leaving small and middle-sized businesses only a small fraction of Polish software development specialists for outsourcing.

About 8,000 software development specialists in Ukraine indicated JavaScript as their major programming language, according to Grid Dynamics’s research based on data available on LinkedIn. There are also approximately 3,000 Python software development experts in Ukraine, 9,000 PHP developers, and 8,000 Java programmers. Such rare technologies as C, C++, TypeScript, Kotlin, and Go have gained popularity among software development gurus in Ukraine in the last two years. The combination of trending and rare skills of Ukrainian software developers make Ukraine a great outsourcing destination for tech businesses around the globe.

In Poland, software development experts follow the global trends and use similar programming languages as their counterparts in Ukraine. You can find many software development specialists in Poland using popular coding languages, such as C#, Python, and JavaScript. PHP and RoR have dropped in popularity, and the market no longer can supply enough programmers having work experience with these technologies. Mobile software development experts in Poland usually use the Elixir, Kotlin, and React Native stack.

The average developer rates of entry-level software development specialists in Ukraine begin at $26 per hour. The average developer rate of a senior specialist in Ukraine is around $43 per hour. A middle-level software development specialist in Ukraine earns from $30 to $38 per hour.

The average developer rate of an entry-level software development specialist in Poland starts at $40 per hour. A senior software developer gets from $56 per hour and more. The software developer rates in Poland are conditioned by the country’s membership in the European Union and geographical proximity to countries with developed economies ready to outsource tech talent.

The average entry-level software development expert in Poland with 1–4 years of experience earns up to $48,873 (84,819zł), according to PayScale. The salary range of software development specialists in Poland provided by Indeed shows higher figures — an entry-level developer with 1 year of experience earns as much as $5,000 a month and $62,293 a year. A senior software developer in Poland with 3–5 years in the industry gets a monthly salary of $6,900, which adds up to $83,865 annually.

The average salary of a senior software development specialist in Ukraine is $4,000 a month and $48,000 a year. The average salary of a middle-level developer in Ukraine is  $2,500 a month, which adds up to $30,000 a year. According to SalaryExpert, an entry-level software development specialist in Ukraine earns around $1,500 a month and $18,000 a year.

In the last decade, Ukraine has repeatedly made an appearance in international tech awards. Tech businesses, programmers, and technical universities have all received recognition from prominent institutions.

 

 

 

In recent decades, Ukraine has been listed among the most lucrative software outsourcing destinations in the world. Thanks to the steady growth in the number of specialists working in IT (both technical and non-technical), a high level of maturity of tech businesses, and close cultural and geographic proximity to Western European countries, foreign clients are able to establish long-lasting partnerships with Ukrainian tech vendors.

The majority of our clients highlight the following benefits of working with Ukrainian software development companies:

1. It takes 1–2 months to hire a software developer in Ukraine and a month to let them go if further cooperation isn’t necessary.
2. The majority of outsourcing tech vendors share risks with their clients and undertake taxes, payroll, and other essential services.
3. On the Ukrainian tech talent market, a client can find programmers with both popular and rare tech skills.
4. The Ukrainian tech talent market offers a great quality-cost ratio, therefore foreign clients can hire high-class experts with affordable salary expectations.
5. Ukrainian programmers are great communicators and about 48% of them have technical education.
    

Read more: 12 Reasons to Hire Ukrainian Software Developers for IT Outsourcing