How many Ukrainian software developers are there in 2020?

Keep reading as we guide you through remote software development in Ukraine. 

In our LinkedIn research, we’ve analyzed the number of Java, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, Python, and PHP programmers in Ukraine, the US, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. Though Ukraine’s population is much smaller than the populations of the US, the UK, and Germany, the country leads in several technologies.

For example, there are 9K PHP programmers in Ukraine, and only 7K PHP programmers in the US. Ukraine is also first in JavaScript (8K programmers), Python (3K software engineers), Ruby on Rails (1K software programmers), and PHP (9K software developers) compared to the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.

There are 9K PHP developers in Ukraine. The country also has the most even distribution of PHP programmers by seniority level.

Ukraine ranks 3rd among other countries. There are 8K Java developers in Ukraine. Ukraine has a sufficient number of Java programmers of all seniority levels, which means that company owners can build a team of Java developers in Ukraine that meets their unique business needs. 

Ukraine stands 2nd in the number of Ruby on Rails developers. There are 1K Ruby on Rails programmers in Ukraine. While the majority of Ruby on Rails developers in the US, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands are seniors, Ukraine shows a more even distribution of Ruby on Rails developers by seniority levels. 

Ukraine ranks 2nd among other countries in the number of Python developers. There are 3K Python programmers in Ukraine. Most Ukrainian developers specializing in Python are seniors, while middle and junior professionals take equal shares of the labor market. 

Ukraine takes 2nd place in the number of JavaScript programmers. There are 8K JavaScript developers in Ukraine. JavaScript engineers in Ukraine are evenly distributed by seniority levels.

We’ve also compiled research on the share of developers in Java, Ruby on Rails, Python, JavaScript, and PHP in the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. JavaScript is the leading technology in all countries. 

Other technologies differ from country to country — for example, in Ukraine, PHP is the second most widespread technology, Java and Python go next, while Ruby on Rails lags behind.

Research methodology

This study was compiled with the help of a professional LinkedIn tool — Recruiter. With Recruiter, we gained the opportunity to access such specific search options as Ukrainian developer specialization details and their exact years of experience. 

The programming languages were chosen based on the global programming languages popularity index TIOBE.  

For the research, we analyzed the overall numbers of software engineers in the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Ukraine separately. 

Apart from the overall number of developers by technology in each country analyzed, we also determined their seniority levels by way of sorting developer profiles according to their years of experience — junior (0–3 years of experience), middle (3–6 years of experience), and senior (6+ years of experience). 

To find out the shares of developers by technology in each country under study, we used UpWork, a global freelance platform for tech professionals. 

*Our research shows overall tendencies on tech talent markets and may be incomplete as the results represent the data that is available on LinkedIn and UpWork only. 

The Ukrainian developer population keeps growing — there are already 200K software engineers in the country. However, the number is increasing continuously — each year, the Ukrainian tech talent pool adds 36K new IT graduates. 

There are 5 main IT hubs in Ukraine — Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv. Kyiv is the largest city and consequently the leader in the number of software developers — around 41% of Ukrainian developers work and live there. Kharkiv goes next with 14%, while Lviv takes 3rd place with more than 10% of the country’s tech professionals.

On average, there are 4 tech workers per 1K people in Ukraine according to the State of European Tech report. However, the numbers vary from city to city, for example, in Kyiv, ​there are 11.7 developers per 1K citizens, in Kharkiv — 9.7, in Lviv — 7.6, and in Dnipro — 4.8.

Ukraine takes the 2nd place by the share of freelance developers among other European countries 

Interestingly, Ukrainian developers rank 2nd in Europe among countries with the biggest numbers of freelance software engineers.

29% of Ukrainian developers have 3–5 years of experience, 25% have worked in IT for 1–2 years,17% of Ukrainian developers have 6 to 10 years of experience, 13% have less than 1 year of experience, and 12% have worked in the tech industry for more than 10 years according to the DOU research. 

The majority of Ukrainian developers are middle — 36%. 27% are junior, 19% are senior, and 11% are team leads. 

There’s a strong stereotype among Ukrainians that the main motivation to work in the tech industry is high salaries. However, the research puts an end to this point of view — while 63% of Ukrainian developers indicate the financial perspective as one of the reasons they chose their profession, 78% state that interest in technologies was the prevailing reason to build a career in tech.  

No wonder 52% of tech employees in Ukraine find their current job interesting, while 31% are excited about their job. 

It’s also a well-known fact that Ukrainians are very hardworking — 52% of programmers in Ukraine work 40–60 hours per week, 38% work between 20 and 40 hours, 3% of Ukrainian developers work more than 60 hours weekly, while only 1% of programmers in Ukraine spend less than 20 hours working per week. 

The majority of software developers in Ukraine collaborate with foreign businesses based in Europe and the US, so their English level is pretty high — 34% of Ukrainian developers have an intermediate level of English, 34% speak upper-intermediate English, 13% are advanced English speakers, and only 4% admit that their English is at an elementary level. 

To find out which countries are the most popular outsourcing destinations for German and Dutch businesses, we’ve been communicating with business executives that have been outsourcing software development for the last 3 years. 

As a result, we determined the most popular outsourcing regions — Eastern Europe takes 1st place with 75.58% of companies, Asia ranks 2nd with 20.48%, Africa is 3rd with 3.15% of companies, and South America is 4th, with only 0.79% of companies to chose this destination.

Businesses based in Germany prefer Ukraine — 17% of respondents indicated Ukraine as their outsourcing destination. 12% of German respondents chose India as their remote development location, 10% have opted for Romania, 9% outsource to Poland, and 4% have a remote team in Belarus. 

Among Dutch businesses, 18% of respondents outsource to India, and 14% have chosen Ukraine as their remote development destination. An equal number of Dutch businesses outsource to Poland and Romania — 9%, while 5% have chosen Belarus.

Grid Dynamics is a technology services provider with over 15 years driving digital transformation for Fortune 1000 companies. Our delivery centers across the Americas, Europe, and India, provide access to scalable teams of first-class developers for custom solutions that meet specialized clients’ requirements.

Our team extension process is simple:

1. Share your business needs and we’ll help you structure your requirements.
2. Interview and hire developers using the tools and methods you like. 
3. Start working with your remote developers.
4. Collaborate with your team, while we provide all the necessary ongoing support.

When you build an offshore development team with us, you’re able to stay fully focused on managing your project, while we take care of office space, HR, staff retention, and all the administrative issues.

Want to learn more about setting up a remote development team in Ukraine with Grid Dynamics? Simply contact us via the form below, and our experts will get back to you shortly.