IT Research Resilience

IMPACT OF THE WAR ON UKRAINE’S TECH INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT

ABOUT THE PROJECT

IT Research Resilience is a research project of the Lviv IT Cluster, which was transformed from the IT Research Ukraine project announced at the beginning of 2022. Due to the full-scale russian offensive, the research was adapted to new realities. For the first time, the Lviv IT Cluster investigated the socio-demographic profile and number of IT specialists, employee and office relocation, changes in the structure of companies, and migration attitudes of IT professionals in seven regions of western Ukraine. In addition, the project contains data on the increase in local consumption due to relocations in the regions and the forecast of the development of the IT industry after the victory of Ukraine. More than 5,000 respondents were surveyed in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Ternopil, Volyn, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia regions. Data collection and analysis within the sociological part of the IT Research Resilience project was provided by the Fama Research Agency on request from the Lviv IT Cluster.

The project was implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the USAID Program “Competitive Economy of Ukraine”, supporting small and midsize businesses and startups, and the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, which supports initiatives to promote reforms in Ukraine and transformative projects.

IT Research is a research network with a unique methodology, thanks to which a large-scale study of the Lviv IT market has been conducted in the city since 2015 on the initiative of Lviv IT Cluster. The IT Cluster team is ready to move forward, expand the geography of the research and involve even more Ukrainian tech hubs in the project. In 2021, Ivano-Frankivsk IT Cluster joined IT Research to conduct a deeper and broader study of the IT industry in two western Ukrainian cities.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of IT Research Resilience is to comprehensively investigate the changes occurring in the tech industry of the western region of Ukraine after the beginning of the full-scale invasion, to analyze the events and the transformation of the IT industry after the victory of Ukraine.

IT RESEARCH Resilience RESULTS

As of the end of 2021, there were about 285,000 IT professionals in Ukraine, with the main tech hubs being located in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa. The full-scale war shook the tech industry as much as any other sphere. According to IT Research Resilience, as of May-June, between 50,000 and 57,000 IT professionals relocated abroad. About 7,000 IT professionals joined the ranks of the Armed Forces or Territorial Defense. Today, the approximate number of IT specialists in Ukraine reaches 228,000 people. The study also analyzed the types of compensation given by companies to mobilized employees.

Portrait of IT specialists

According to IT Research Resilience, the median salary of an IT specialist in Ukraine after February 24 is $2,360. The average age of an IT specialist is 31 years. 71% of the industry are men and 29% are women.

MIGRATION ATTITUDES

According to the IT Research Resilience, 57% of respondents want to live in Ukraine. Experienced employees who have a partner or family member are more likely to move abroad. The most common factors that provoke migration are the loss of housing or work. During the survey, we modeled three prospective scenarios of the development of events in Ukraine and invited IT specialists to imagine themselves in each of them a year from now. In the case of the implementation of the positive scenario, which presupposes European integration and liberalization of the economy, 78% of the respondents will remain in Ukraine, and 12%, i.e. approximately 27,000 people, will try to move abroad.

BUSINESS ACTIVITY RESUMPTION

According to IT Research Resilience, 85% of surveyed companies said that as of May, they managed to completely or almost completely resume business activity to pre-February 24 levels. 63% of companies noted a positive financial result, and 13% – an increase in income in the range of 25-50%.

IT Research Resilience project studies the socio-demographic profile and the number of tech specialists, relocation of the employees and IT companies’ offices in the territory of Ukraine, changes in the company structure, and attitudes on the migration of the Ukrainian tech specialists, and the detailed IT market profile of seven regions in the west of Ukraine.

IT Research Resilience is the only comprehensive, in-depth study of Ukraine’s tech industry during the war, which aims not only to analyze the current situation but also to try to forecast future scenarios of its development.

Download IT Research Resilience

Want to see extended report?

A detailed version of IT Research Resilience is available only for Lviv IT Cluster members.

JOIN

IT Research 2021

In 2021, IT Research 6.0 analyzed the structure and development of the IT industry in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, the number of IT companies and tech professionals, and the economic effect of the industry. The study also traces the impact of COVID-19 on the IT industry, the peculiarities of the work of IT professionals during the pandemic, the attitude towards vaccination, describes the structure and types of human capital inflow, analyzes the educational ecosystem, etc.
DOWNLOAD

IT Research 2020

In 2020 we got the most up-to-date information on the industry development dynamics, its economic effect, and a portrait of an IT specialist in Lviv. In addition to the economic indicators, IT Research 5.0 analyzed the impact of the pandemic-induced crisis on the Lviv IT sector.
DOWNLOAD

IT Research 2019

In 2019, we analyzed the dynamics of the IT industry’s growth in Lviv and economic and financial indicators related to its activities in the city. The dynamics of growth during this year were enormous compared to all previous years. We also tracked changes in the portrait of the Lviv IT specialist and the average monthly income.
DOWNLOAD

IT Research 2018

In 2018, we analyzed the IT industry’s economic effect in Lviv, conducted a detailed analysis of the IT market, and investigated its impact on other business areas – real estate, banking and automotive, insurance, medicine, and education, entertainment, and others.
DOWNLOAD

IT Research 2017

In 2017 we analyzed the economic impact of the IT industry on adjacent in Lviv: real estate, banking, insurance, automobile, Horeca, medicine, education, and others. The research gives comprehensive information about the number of workplaces created in related industries by one IT specialist, IT market dynamics and the economic effect of the IT industry for Lviv.

DOWNLOAD

IT Research 2016

In 2015, having interviewed more than 400 IT specialists, we gathered comprehensive data on the IT industry in Lviv. In particular, information about the city’s average IT specialist, their qualifications and salary. The margin of error is less than 5%. To view the data, download the report below.

DOWNLOAD

FAQ on the project

Are the research results trustworthy?

Due to the IT community’s mass relocation and the dynamic situation in the country during the war, the IT Research Resilience sample was formed, taking into account the prior assessment of the main regions of internal relocation.

As a result of the assessment, it was indicated that the top regions for relocation are Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi, Rivne, and Volyn regions.

Therefore, conducting a survey with a specialized modular sample in these regions provided coverage of IT community representatives who were in the territory of Ukraine during the research period.

More details
Who are the client and the contractor for the project?

Lviv IT Research has been conducted by Lviv IT Cluster together with sociological agency “Fama”. IT Cluster owns the research results. Information provided by companies and individuals is confidential and is presented in generalized form for analytical purposes only.