Ukrainian tech job market in 2022: 3x more job applications and huge demand for senior candidates

Despite the war, the Ukrainian IT industry brought $6 billion in export revenue, up 10% from the previous year, according to IT Ukraine Association. At the same time, trends in the tech job market are understandably demonstrating the opposite. Hires are down by 13%, monthly published jobs are down by two times during 2022. Given the circumstances, these figures are far from the worst scenario, the fresh research on the Ukrainian tech job market in 2022 by Djinni tech job marketplace says. To conduct the report, the authors analyzed the changes in companies’ and candidates’ activities on the platform. AIN.Capital shares the key points.

• The job market of 2022 is officially an employer’s market. By the end of 2022, the number of candidates searching for a job (actively and passively) has reached a record mark of 77,000. This is because of a huge number of junior candidates’ and switchers joining the job market. The share of “newbies” in IT has grown from 25% in 2021 to 29% in 2022, the research shows.
• At the same time, the number of job applications increased almost 3 times (2.4 million vs 806,000 in 2021). The market is upside down in comparison to the situation in 2021. 2022 will be to a great degree dominated by employers’ demand. In September itself, a new absolute high was seen — 268,000 job applications in a month.
• On the other side, recruiters published 168,000 unique vacancies, 10% less than in 2021. The plunge in monthly publications is more dramatic: from 34,500 in January 2022 to 16,000 in November.

• The share of vacancies with no requirement for specific experience fell from 5.3% to 3.9%. The share of new jobs for the top specialists increased from 13 to 20%. Among the top categories, the number of new jobs is down for most specializations except C++ and Node.js. 

• Almost 12,800 candidates were reportedly hired in Djinni, which is 13% less than last year. For the first time in 10 years, there are fewer hires in 2022 than the year before. Specialists with 5+ years of experience, meanwhile, are the most in demand. Their share in hires is about 35%.
• The median salary of hired candidates increased this year for almost all segments, especially for experienced tech professionals. For newcomers and candidates without experience, the median remains at a modest $500.

• At the beginning of the full-scale war, the share of fully remote positions increased from 27% to 55%, but in December it shrank to 48%. The ‘candidate can choose’ option started to gain popularity after attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in October. Companies equipped their offices with generators and Starlinks so that employees can work during blackouts. Office jobs also increased from 5 to 7% in December. 
• There is also another trend in the Ukrainian tech job market. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, companies from outside Ukraine offered to Ukrainians the option of relocation. Gradually, this opportunity exhausted itself: in October, there were only 10% of relocation options available, and in December — 12%. The most popular country for relocation remains Poland, the same as a year before.