How will salaries in IT change in 2024?
To find out what salaries in IT will be this year, we asked middle and senior specialists to answer the questions:
- How have the events of the past three years affected salaries in IT?
- How did the salaries of frontenders, backenders and testers change in 2023?
- How will wages change by 2024? Have you started paying and raising less often?
- Which market specialists are worth their weight in gold? Who gets the big offers?
- What technologies do you need to master in the backend and frontend to achieve salary growth in 2024?
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We remind you that you can ask your question to the experts, and we will collect answers to it if it turns out to be interesting. Questions that have already been asked can be found in the list of issues in the section.
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How have the events of the past three years affected salaries in IT?
Ekaterina Yuranova
IT Recruiter at Outlines Tech
The IT market has always been a candidate’s market, and remains so. But the events of the last three years have made their own changes. Initially, Covid had an impact: the need to work from the office disappeared, and they began to actively hire IT specialists from the regions. Candidates began to look at the capital’s salary level and raised their financial expectations. As a result, the salary scale of specialists from the regions aligned with Moscow. The second important change: business has turned towards greater digitalization and the transfer of processes from offline to online. Accordingly, new projects began to appear, and with them salaries increased.
In 2022, the market exploded again. Foreign customers and suppliers began to leave Russia, and IT specialists began to relocate. Foreign companies offered higher salaries, and with the transition to domestic projects, ensuring such a level of income became problematic. On the other hand, domestic employers paid more attention to employee retention, including through increasing income and introducing bonuses.
Now companies are focused on developing their own technologies and import substitution. For example, 1C specialists, who were not held in high esteem until 2022, have increased in price. There are more than 11 thousand vacancies open on hh.ru, and this is more than offers for other developers. At the same time, the rate of salary increase here is one of the highest.
Albert Kaygorodov
CTO&CPO Flero
In general, salaries in the IT sector continue to grow rapidly. The trend has a lot to do with inflation in the US. It pulls all other salary markets with it, since now everything is integrated and a person, knowing English, can work remotely anywhere in the world.
Anton Mishin
General Director at Proscom
Salaries of IT specialists have been growing since 2020. Thanks to statistics, this can be seen more clearly. For example, in 2020, the median salary among all IT specialists was 113.000₽in 2022 already 150.000₽ (7% more than in 2020), and in 2023 – 165.000₽ (10% more than in 2022).
Today, there are 3 main trends in the IT labor market:
Trend 1 – Minimum unemployment rate
Everything here is quite simple – Rosstat claims that the unemployment rate in Russia in August was 3%. And this is the historical minimum of recent decades. This seems like a good thing, but there are two sides to the coin.
Trend 2 – Increasing pressure on the IT labor market
Companies in the real sector – Sberbank, VTB and others – began to build IT departments within themselves and began to compete for specialists. All of them, starting from 2015-2016, have been strongly “heating up” the market, attracting candidates to themselves.
Trend 3 – Lack of personnel
The main reasons for the shortage of IT personnel in the Russian market are the departure of specialists, the departure of foreign players and the growing demand for Russian IT solutions.
These three trends exist in conjunction with each other and affect salaries in IT.
Dmitry Korkin
Joy Dev, CEO and Founder
Since 2020, we have seen a very strong increase in salaries in IT, especially in some industries (for example, iOS development), when there was a shortage of personnel. Therefore, salaries have increased significantly. However, when the crisis occurred in 2022, this bubble burst, and the salaries of IT workers rolled back by about 30-40%.
2024 has started actively: demand has increased, but the requirements for specialists have also increased, and there are still not enough specialists of the required level. But raising wages for those people who are missing is creating another soap bubble. This is how inflation appears in the country: companies try to unreasonably raise employee salaries, while the cost of development on the market remains fixed and has a certain value.
If in 2024 we again solve the personnel issue only by increasing salaries, then we will achieve nothing.
Maxim Ilgov
Director of Public Relations of the financial technology company “ONLY BANK”
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, there has been a significant increase in demand for IT specialists. According to reports, the growth in the number of IT vacancies in Russia is about 20-25% annually.
The Russian government actively supported digitalization, investing more than 100 billion rubles in the development of digital infrastructure, which contributed to the creation of new jobs in the technology sector.
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How did the salaries of frontenders, backenders and testers change in 2023?
Denis Borodachenko
СTO Joy Dev
To answer your question more accurately, I would divide it into development and QA.
1. Development
The situation is ambiguous; depending on the platform, some things have increased and some have fallen. If in 2022 the development of business informatization was noticeable, then in 2023 the majority rebuilt and adapted. People were afraid to take risks and create new solutions, and spent more resources on maintaining and optimizing their current solutions. In general, this fact did not deviate the need for development; more tasks changed, so no global changes occurred and developers remained in demand as specialists on the market.
2. QA
According to my observations, this specialty in the field has grown significantly. As well as competency requirements. I think this is due to the same period of downtime, when development needed to focus more efforts on researching existing solutions, which increased the need for such a role as a tester, and increased the requirements for the quality of their work.
Dmitry Korkin
Joy Dev, CEO and Founder
In general, everything has leveled out: there are no incredibly expensive offers, and in some places salaries have even decreased. I would like to note that 1C Bitrix and PHP areas have taken off. In these two niches, backender salaries have increased.
Java developers suffered a decline in wages and demand because there was an oversupply of them in 2023.
Albert Kaygorodov
CTO&CPO Flero
Now the approximate spread in salaries for Frontend and Backend specialists is from 150 to 450 thousand per month, depending on the grade. For testers – from 100 to 300 thousand. Basically, salaries for them are determined by experience and skill in automating the QA process.
Ekaterina Yuranova
IT Recruiter at Outlines Tech
In 2023, we did not notice large fluctuations in salary levels, although Habr Career reports an increase in income. According to the study, developers’ salaries increased by 18% compared to the second half of 2022, and testers’ salaries increased by 17%. I suppose, taking into account inflation, this increase is not so insignificant.
Anton Mishin
General Director at Proscom
The average salary of frontenders in 2023 relative to 2022 increased by 16%. In 2022 it was 155,000 rubles, and in 2023 – 180,000 rubles.
The average salary of backenders also increased by 16%. In 2022 it was 173,000 rubles, and in 2023 – 200,000 rubles.
Testers’ salaries increased by 17% from 107,000₽ in 2022 to 125,000₽.
The largest increase in salaries was for game developers (by 42%, up to 170,000 rubles). And salaries grew the least among software architects (by 7%).
Of course, it is also important to take into account geographical characteristics. Obviously, in Moscow the salary of an IT specialist will be higher than in the regions of the country.
Maxim Ilgov
Director of Public Relations of the financial technology company “ONLY BANK”
The average salary of front-end developers in 2023 reached about 120,000 rubles per month, which is 15% more than in 2022.
Salaries of backend developers increased to an average level of 140,000 rubles, which is 18% higher than the previous year.
The average salary of testers increased to 110,000 rubles, which is 10% more than the previous year.
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How will wages change by 2024? Have you started paying and raising less often?
Denis Borodachenko
СTO Joy Dev
During the “product” downtime at the beginning of the year, “senior” level specialists became more in demand, and on some platforms their level of conditions increased accordingly. But everything is as always: more complicated than it seems. The price of a good specialist has risen, but it cannot be said that there was great demand in the market. Companies were willing to pay for high competence, but also tightened the requirements because had less opportunity to take risks.
Juniors and middles, as a result, found themselves in approximately the same situation, more hard-working specialists received their opportunity to grow, and the market kept the rest in the same position until they were in demand. By the end of the year, product development had subsided, which made it possible to again assemble diverse teams in terms of specialist levels, but the trend is not yet clear. On some platforms, the cost of a senior has decreased, but I have not noticed an increase in the salary level for others. Therefore, it is too early to say whether there will be a decline or whether we will still maintain the average by lowering the maximum and increasing the minimum wage.
A good specialist will not be paid less because of the situation in the world. The market will rather operate on the requirements for this position than on the material component. For the rest, rely on the longer-term trend.
Ekaterina Yuranova
IT Recruiter at Outlines Tech
I wouldn’t say they started paying less. Rather, bonuses are not given out as readily as they were before, or salary revisions have been completely frozen. I also notice that IT specialists are less likely to receive promotions, because increasing grades means increasing income. For example, the company promised reviews after 6 months, but in the end they shifted it to 8 months. This applies to all grades.
I also heard from candidates that some companies are saving money by cutting benefits in the form of paying for subscriptions, replacing them with more modest voluntary health insurance programs, and canceling intra-corporate activities.
Anton Mishin
General Director at Proscom
Employers definitely didn’t pay less or raise people. Perhaps, on the contrary, there is no strong dynamics in the growth of salaries of IT specialists.
At the same time, we note that candidates’ requests have increased significantly, but this is more likely due not to an increase in market salaries, but to the fact that simply fewer people want to change jobs. This is partly confirmed by the fact that very few worthy candidates come, and the general shortage of personnel in the market, according to statistics for other industries — There are a total shortage of 4.8 million workers in Russia.
Dmitry Korkin
Joy Dev, CEO and Founder
I predict that there will still be some growth, but definitely not for the Junes. They are not particularly ready to hire them now; a very small percentage of companies work with juniors. Middles and high-level seniors are expected to grow. I think this will be a very correct decision, but the market dictates its conditions.
Specialists’ salaries are now rarely increased. Usually once a year the minimum indexation takes place, somewhere around 15%. But in crisis years, I think that indexation should not be expected.
Maxim Ilgov
Director of Public Relations of the financial technology company “ONLY BANK”
It is expected that the salaries of juniors will increase by 10-15%, middles by 15-20%, and seniors by more than 20%. This means that juniors can expect a salary from 100,000 to 115,000 rubles, middles from 130,000 to 168,000 rubles, and seniors from 170,000 rubles and above.
The probability of promotion for IT specialists is estimated at 30-40%, especially for those who actively develop their skills and demonstrate high productivity.
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Which market specialists are worth their weight in gold? Who gets the big offers?
Albert Kaygorodov
CTO&CPO Flero
Of course, these are senior and team lead level specialists. Nothing has changed globally in the specializations themselves, except that the demand for specialists in artificial intelligence and experience working with it has grown quite significantly.
In addition, it is more difficult for junior-level specialists to find work due to the development of AI assistants such as CoPilot. This is due to the fact that artificial intelligence can simply replace novice specialists. However, this can be an advantage for them. You just need to integrate an AI assistant into your flow. This way, Junior specialists will stand out among their competitors and breathe in the backs of more experienced developers, since it is more difficult for them to adapt to modern trends and implement a new tool.
Denis Borodachenko
СTO Joy Dev
For example, 10 years ago it was more difficult for us to accept a senior position with less than 5 years of experience. Today this is possible; the speed at which a specialist moves up the career ladder within a certain competence is also growing. There is some narrowing of competencies. Where, within the framework of demand in the short term, a narrower competence provides more opportunities for growing one’s financial situation. But the long-term perspective suffers; it becomes more difficult to stay in the market if you do not develop yourself diversified.
Ekaterina Yuranova
IT Recruiter at Outlines Tech
ML engineers and Rust, Dart, Scala, Cobol developers are worth their weight in gold. Technologies are rare, so specialists have every opportunity to dictate their terms to the market. For example, in 2023, the most significant increase in salaries was for developers in Scala – by 37%.
Senior management is also in demand – these are those who are difficult to find, easy to lose and impossible to forget, regardless of time and circumstances. If we talk about development prospects, I will highlight DevOps specialists, Data direction and engineers who work with artificial intelligence. Over the years, their demand will only grow, and therefore their market value.
Anton Mishin
General Director at Proscom
Now the difference in demand lies in grades. There are quite a lot of juniors and mids on the market, there is no urgent need for them. But there are no leads, seniors and managers who can assign tasks to juniors and middles.
For example, we also lack leads—highly paid specialists who can effectively manage technical projects. In addition, a lead cannot be quickly trained from scratch. This is just serious years of experience.
Dmitry Korkin
Joy Dev, CEO and Founder
Considering the high demand for ML and development in general, there is a shortage of analysts and ML specialists. Now they are worth their weight in gold and, naturally, given their shortage, salaries are rising. These are the market conditions.
I will also touch on backend specialists. Currently, as part of import substitution, the most trendy PHP frameworks are Laravel and Simfony. Next, Golang is a language that, in principle, does not lose its position and is becoming more popular.
In the frontend, React holds its position.
Flutter is gaining momentum and popularity in mobile development.
Maxim Ilgov
Director of Public Relations of the financial technology company “ONLY BANK”
Due to the increase in the number of projects related to artificial intelligence, the demand for specialists in this field has increased by 25%.
Specialists with skills in cloud services are in high demand, with salaries rising by 20-30%.
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What technologies do you need to master in the backend and frontend to achieve salary growth in 2024?
Albert Kaygorodov
CTO&CPO Flero
The most popular Frontend frameworks are still React.js and React Native. Accordingly, I would recommend focusing on them, and on Javascript/Typescript.
On the Backend everything is standard and depends on the stack. However, personally, I would focus on Javascript – Node.js stacks like Express. I would also recommend considering GraphQL when developing APIs. In addition, with the development of AI, vector databases are actively gaining momentum, so I would also advise you to master them. Vector search, for example, is already in MongoDB.
Denis Borodachenko
СTO Joy Dev
Depends on everyone’s short and long term goals.
If you feel that the market is undervaluing you, you should focus on a narrower specialization and raise your value within certain limits, focusing on your main professional area.
If you understand that the ceiling within your competence is already close, then you should consider expanding your competence so that at some point you do not remain outside the market for top vacancies, because, in my opinion, the trend of faster variability of requirements will continue as locally within the platform, and globally within IT areas.
Ekaterina Yuranova
IT Recruiter at Outlines Tech
Take a closer look at artificial intelligence. Technologies make it easier to complete routine tasks, and the faster and better the tasks are completed, the greater the likelihood of a promotion. I hear from candidates that they are increasingly turning to AI for help. If we talk about technology, clouds and microservices are trending. It is also useful to improve your knowledge of information security.
Anton Mishin
General Director at Proscom
The honest answer is to learn English and read the book Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Interview Questions and Answers (“Programming Career. How to Get a Job at Google, Microsoft or Other Leading IT Company”) on interviewing for Western companies. And apply somewhere with a simple relocation, for example, to the Netherlands.
Any specific technologies are unlikely to lead to growth. It is better to look for what you really like and what you would sincerely like to do. They pay for relevant (real) experience; in the future, choosing a profession you like will have a greater effect.
Dmitry Korkin
Joy Dev, CEO and Founder
There are now enough frontend developers, so we see stability in salaries. It is unlikely that anything will change much for them in the new year, unlike the analysts, Go and PHP developers on the frameworks that I spoke about earlier.
Summing up, I would like to add: let’s raise specialists, and not hunt them from each other, raising salaries and exploding the market.
Ideally, return to distribution from universities and quotas from the state. There is a definite trend towards targeted training, and many universities are moving towards having the company pay for the student’s education.
Maxim Ilgov
Director of Public Relations of the financial technology company “ONLY BANK”
Backend: Knowledge and experience with Node.js, Python, Ruby and Go are considered key. Also important is the ability to work with databases, including NoSQL and SQL.
Frontend: Frameworks like React, Angular and Vue remain trending, and proficiency in working with Progressive Web Applications (PWA) is also important.
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We remind you that you can ask your question to the experts, and we will collect answers to it if it turns out to be interesting. Questions that have already been asked can be found in the list of issues in the section.
If you want to join the ranks of experts and send an answer from your company or yourself, then write to experts@tproger.ru, we will tell you how to do this.
