Kharkiv IT Research 2.0: Review
In Novermber, 15th, Kharkiv IT Cluster presented the results of IT industry research about Kharkiv location. Pricewaterhouse (PwC) and IRS-group provided the information about IT industry in Kharkiv region. 7800 IT specialists participated in the poll and 9 top-managers gave the interview.
Currently the industry takes the second place after Kyiv according to the number of companies – it encounters 480 service and product companies with 31000 people working there. Kharkiv demonstrates a great synergy of extra-small, small, medium and big companies coexisting together in the same location. Still the quantity of small companies dominates (270). IT industry has shown 24% growth with $962mln.
Main markets which consume Kharkiv IT services are the USA (74%), EU (19%). Middle east (2%), Asia (1%), Australia and Oceania (1%). IT industry in our region was characterized as multivector, i.e. e-commerce, gaming, banking, finance, medicine, education and insurance are the main domains Kharkiv companies provide services for. Besides, media and advertising, retail and wholesale, telecommunications, travel, entertainment, automotive and manufacturing, transportation and logistics, energy and resources, construction were in the list.
Kharkiv IT companies paid 6.4billion hryvnias for state taxes, that is 1.4 billion more than previous year. The average income of IT specialists in our region equals $2025.
The main reasons to move to Kharkiv according to the poll are getting a high-quality education (66%), more development opportunities (45%), cultural advantages, developed infrastructure (25%), high level of earnings (117%), favorable job offer (17%), etc.
The banks which provide services for IT specialists and those who are in this field are PrivatBank, UkrsibBank, Monobank, PUMB and Alfabank. Ukrainian telecoms reps remained the same – Vodafone, Kyivstar and Lifecell.
In the list of knowledge of programming languages SQL, JavaScript, Java, C# and C++ are in the top five technologies.
Absence of commercial property that could be united into IT parks for the growing number of companies was named as one of the main challenges. Another one is the insufficient quantity of young specialists who can start their career in this field. That’s why companies provide company owned courses or corporate educational centres within the companies. Lack of clinics which can provide high level of healthcare services and lack of lecturers with business expertise are also mentioned.
Kharkiv is stated to be a good region for technological business development, i.e. it includes consolidated IT community, a great number of educational establishments, events.
In conclusion Kharkiv was noted as a key location for IT business development in Ukraine due to a series of reasons such as stabilization of geopolitical situation in the East of Ukraine and improvement of the city infrastructure, developed cooperation between IT business and local educational institutions, large amount of R&Ds and affordable residential accommodation.
Written by Anna Kotliarova
