Overview of IT salary expectations in Ukraine: up to $12,500 a month + perks for seniors

The founder of the VP Team recruiting agency Viktoriia Prydatko has published a report on salaries based on the expectations of the job candidates they worked with. The data was collected from August 2021 to February 2022.

As Viktoriia noted, her agency works exclusively with companies and candidates of the highest level, and clients are very demanding. So the salaries in the report are slightly higher than the market average. Over 95% of companies VP Team works with offer options and perks, so candidates’ actual incomes are much higher than the salaries listed in the survey.

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

Senior executive salary range

• Top senior specialists consider salaries in the range of $6,000-$15,000 + options/bonuses.

Salaries of seniors

• The salary wishes of Senior-level engineers were equal and, in some cases, exceeded the expectations of C-level executives.
• Senior salary expectations start at $6,000-$7,000 per month. Specialists who accepted $5,000 offers in the summer of 2021 would easily change a project or company for a salary of $7,000 in 2022 + perks/options at startups working under direct contracts.
• Seniors from Latin America, Israel, Poland, Georgia have slightly lower salary expectations than Ukrainians.
• The minimum experience of Senior specialists with whom the agency communicates is 7-10 years. Candidates must also be fluent in English.

VP Team expects that in 2022 the average salary in the market will increase by 30%-50%.

Salaries of Middles

• Product-oriented mid-level professionals consider salaries from $4,000 to $6,000 per month + perks/options.
• The average experience of mid-level employees is 3-5 years.

Top 6 hires

According to the agency’s statistics, the companies are ready to agree to the applicants’ conditions. Viktoriia gave examples of the biggest offers that VP Team has closed over the past six months.

• СMO – $13,000
• Big Data Architecht – $12,500
• COO – $10,000
• Senior Data Engineer – $10,000
• Senior Java Developer – $9,000
• Senior Product Designer – $8,000

As Viktoriia noted, VP Team works exclusively with product companies from Ukraine, the United States, and Europe. Teams are distributed around the world, and 90% of clients hire only remote workers. Such companies have a relatively small staff and a fast hiring process.

At the same time, companies have become more focused on retaining their employees. In 90% of cases, companies are ready to make a counter-offer to the candidate if they decide to leave the company.