Ukrainian IT Exports Exceed $5 billion in a Year for the First Time

Despite the crisis of 2020, the volume of Ukrainian IT exports exceeded $5 billion for the first time and showed an increase of 20.44% compared to 2019. At the same time, for the period from 2016 to 2020, the total amount of exports of IT services exceeded the mark of $16 billion.

According to the BRDO analytics, this is the first time that IT exports have exceeded exports of transport services and mineral products, which have traditionally held higher positions.

In the first half of 2020, the Ukrainian IT industry responded to global economic changes by slowing growth from 30% to 24%, most customers reviewed their business processes and optimized them according to the challenges of the corona crisis. However, having effectively overcome external and internal challenges, the IT industry soon regained its position. This has happened both due to the restoration of demand in the global market and the preservation of high quality and competitive prices, even in the transition to a completely remote mode of operation. Already in July 2020, the number of vacancies in IT companies in Ukraine returned to pre-crisis levels, reaching more than five thousand vacancies, and continues to grow rapidly in 2021.

Factors contributing to the growth of the Ukrainian IT industry in recent years are the lack of state intervention and market regulation, maintaining a free choice of the contractual model of interaction between companies and IT specialists, and a consistently high professional level of Ukrainian IT specialists.

Vitaliy Sedler, President of the IT Ukraine Association, CEO of Intellias: “The IT industry is consistently showing high growth rates. The need for digitalization of business processes continues to grow worldwide, so the demand for the expertise of engineers is increasing. In 2020, the Ukrainian IT business has shown that it can quickly adapt to external negative factors without losing productivity. Therefore, I am confident that the industry will continue to grow rapidly, enriching the country. The main thing for this is to ensure stable conditions for the functioning of the IT industry and systemic reform of IT education in Ukraine.”

We remind you that in pre-crisis 2019, exports of computer services increased by 30.2% compared to the previous year and amounted to $4.17 billion.