who are paid high salaries?
Site editorial staff DOU.UA decided to analyze in more detail who gets the most on the market, and tried to draw up instructions on how to achieve such high results. Here are 11 steps to help you earn over $ 5000 in salary.
An attentive reader can say that today in the IT market, almost every second specialist receives more than $ 5,000. Whether this is so, we will definitely see in the winter salary report.
However, if we look at the results of the summer survey, we will notice that the share of specialists who can boast of such earnings significantly decreases from $ 5,000 per month. That is why they chose $ 5,000 as the limit that separates the highest paid specialists on the market today. 13,175 respondents took part in the summer survey, 1403 of them receive salaries of $ 5,000 or more.
Attention! DOU.UA editors are not responsible for the results of following this instruction. Don’t take it too seriously. We have built this guide on real numbers, but we do not guarantee that following all the steps will give the desired result.
Step 1. Move to a big city
So, first of all, those wishing to receive a high salary should move to a big city, preferably to Kiev. 61% of all Ukrainian IT specialists with a salary of $ 5,000 and above work here (in total, 44% of Ukrainian IT specialists work in the capital).
You can also consider moving to Lviv – 14% of specialists with the highest salaries work there, which is more than in other cities with a population of over one million. It is definitely not worth staying in a small city: only 5% of those working in non-millionaire cities earn $ 5,000 or more.
Share of 5000+ by city:
Step 2. Get your degree
Those with a PhD are more likely to be offered high salaries. 15% of those with PhDs or PhDs earn more than $ 5,000, while in total there are about 11% of IT professionals.
Share of 5000+ in the context of education:
Step 3. Attend conferences and engage in self-development
Even if you do not want to go to university again, you should devote time to self-development. Those earning $ 5,000 or more are more likely to attend industry-specific events and read books in their specialty than their less-paid counterparts.
Self-development by the level of salary:
Step 4. Learn and Improve English
Probably, now no one doubts that an IT specialist needs to know English. In our recent articles on employee salaries (here and here), we have already shown that the salaries of specialists in different areas depend on the level of English proficiency.
81% of professionals earning more than $ 5000 know English at an upper intermediate or advanced level. At the same time, those who know him worse have less than 5% chance of receiving such a salary.
Share of 5000+ by level of English:
Step 5. Choose a technical specialization
Best of all – development or DevOps and persistently pump your skills in this. Only 1% of non-technical IT professionals have salaries of more than $ 5,000, compared to 12% of technical specialists.
IT professionals with the highest salaries – STO, Director of Engineering, Architects (about 70% receive over $ 5000), high-level developers (23% Senior, 36% Team Lead, 45% Tech Lead receive over $ 5000), DevOps and SRE (21%), top-level QA specialists (managers, tech leads – 24%), Delivery Managers (34%).
In general, high-level employees (managers, leads) of any direction can count on high salaries, but the share of other specializations is noticeably lower, which means that there are fewer high-paying vacancies there.
Share of 5000+ in the context of specializations:
Step 6. Work for a long time
Another conclusion is connected with the previous point: high salaries are mainly paid to experienced specialists. Unfortunately, it is impossible to come into IT and get $ 5000 right away. At least in our survey, we did not find a single specialist with up to three years of experience and such a salary.
Those who have been in the industry for 6-9 years (18%) or more than 10 years (31%) have the greatest opportunity to receive a large salary. Consequently, high salaries in IT are quite real, but you need to work to get them. Share of 5000+ by experience
Step 7. And persistently
Also, those who work a lot are more likely to apply for high salaries: 23% of specialists who work more than 60 hours a week receive $ 5,000 or more, while only 11% of IT specialists.
The good news is that you can get a high salary by working the usual +/- 40 hours a week (94% of specialists with high salaries work this way) and specialists who devote more than 60 hours a week to work are still rare (there are only 4% among highly paid specialists and 2% among all IT specialists in general).
Share of 5000+ in terms of working hours:
Step 8. Forget PHP
When choosing a specialization, novice developers should pay attention to TypeScript, Java, Swift and Python – these are popular languages, and among those for whom they are the main ones, the proportion of specialists with high salaries is slightly higher (taking into account their work experience).
Most of all, according to the June salary survey, are paid to those who mainly work with Scala and Go. However, these languages are less common and are mostly used by more experienced developers (Middle level and higher).
Step 9. Choose startups (but this is not certain)
Choose the right company to work with. The highest share of specialists receiving high salaries is now in startups (20%) and outstaffing companies (16%). Startups are more suitable for experienced professionals: they now have the highest median salaries for Senior developers ($ 5,000), while outstaffing companies pay higher salaries for developers of all levels (the median salary for a Senior developer is $ 4,200).
Share of 5000+ by types of companies:
Step 10. Choose the right specialization in the company
The area in which the company operates is also important. You should pay attention to the companies working in Uberfication, HighLoad Systems, Cloud Computing, Security, Adtech, Blockchain, Big Data, Machine Learning and Automotive – the share of employees with high salaries in these areas is higher than in others.
Share of 5000+ by industry:
Step 11. Change jobs to earn more
Among experienced professionals who changed jobs in the first half of this year, a larger proportion of those receiving $ 5,000 than those who did not change jobs.
Share of 5000+ by experience and job change:
Share of 5000+ developers by title and job change:
And finally
I would also like to say a few words about women. Now 97% of IT professionals with the highest salaries are men. In the survey, we collected only 49 questionnaires of women with a salary of over $ 5000 versus 1,354 questionnaires of men.
In our materials, we regularly study the issues of women’s salaries (here and here), and, fortunately, we do not find steady evidence that there is a pay gap in Ukrainian IT between women and men in similar positions and with similar experiences. The predominantly lower media salaries of women are due to the fact that among them there is a smaller share of experienced specialists (especially in technical specialties), because the stereotype that STEM is not for girls, still exists in our society.
The situation is gradually changing, and every year we observe a small, but steady increase in the proportion of women in IT. We hope that the number of women receiving high salaries will also increase.
If you have comments, suggestions or remarks on the articlego to the discussion or write to vlada@dou.ua.
Analyst: Irina Ippolitova
Data visualization: Igor Yanovsky
