Labor market research of Internet developers

Hi, Habr!

Probably the most frequent question for IT managers is “Where can I get programmers?”. For Eycharch in general, every new discovery of a developer’s job is a serious challenge, regardless of the region or technology platform. Let's see what is happening and how to correct the situation.

Statistics: rapid growth and lack of people

Recently, the software development industry in Russia is growing steadily. Turnover in enterprise-development grew in 2012 by about 12%, and the Internet market jumped by as much as 30% (Cnews, RAEC). Due to what is growing momentum in the industry? Inflation is only 6.6%, and the rise in prices is 7% (Ministry of Economic Development, Prime). Where does the remaining 5-25% come from? Partly due to the introduction of know-how to optimize workflows, but, for the most part, by increasing the volume of services provided.
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_{A brief note about inflation: yes, in my opinion, it affects the growth of market turnovers in currency equivalent, because it increases the wages of people and the rates of specialists that agencies sell man-hours to customers.}

To do more projects, you need to hire more people. Let's estimate how many programmers work in Russia alone: ​​according to various estimates, in 2010 the number of developers ranged from 70,000 to 350,000 (Microsoft, APCIT, Sight). The estimate of 350 thousand looks more adequate, since according to various data in the world leaders in the number of programmers - the USA and India - about 3 million people work in this area.

Suppose that since 2010 the number of developers has grown at a rate of 10%: after all, there is also an in-house development, which was not taken into account in the Cnews rating. Thus, as of 2013, there should be approximately 460 thousand developers in Russia. And next year about 46 thousand new specialists will be needed.

Where to get developers?

Where to get 46 thousand programmers? According to IBM and APKIT research, domestic universities provide only about 85% of the volume required by the IT industry . In addition, there are constantly disputes about the low quality of training students, most of whom have to retrain in the workplace. For example, businessmen are forcing the situation too high, and universities for at least 70%, but close the necessary volumes. It remains almost 14 thousand people.

Even less hope for the younger generation remains after looking at the graph of fertility and mortality in Russia for the years 1990-2009.



Since the average university graduate is about 20-22 years old, the next 5-7 years, the number of young engineers will only decrease.

We'll have to fill the shortage of specialists in two ways:
- retraining of people from other professions;
- advanced training of existing developers to a new level.

There is, of course, a potential third option — to quickly bring many foreign specialists into the country. But something tells me that it will not work quickly. For 11 years of work in IT for foreigners, I saw only in the role of investors or managers of the parent international company.

And then the internet?

We in RIK are unlikely to be able to reach 14 thousand people a year in the near future (Bauman MSTU produces about 3 thousand from all faculties). But we can correct the situation at least in the segment of developers of Internet projects.

The plan is:

1. To collect data on the needs of Internet companies in the developers;
2. Publish a general report and analysis results;
3. Prepare educational programs for developers.
4. Provide market players with a big discount.

Briefly explain. Firstly, we did not find a single study of the labor market of Internet developers on the Internet (sorry for the tautology). This is already a big enough gap to fill. Business leaders and representatives of educational companies should be guided by what is happening in the labor market. At a minimum, this will help to establish a dialogue between business and educational institutions, so that the training programs are as close to reality as possible.

Secondly, according to the results of the study, we plan to prepare training programs that best meet the needs of the market. And the participants of the study, we are ready to make decent discounts on training specialists. This is possible thanks to a strong reduction in marketing costs: there will be no need to test the course for its need, there will be no need for advertising costs. This will give a price 20-30% lower than usual.

This approach in mature offline industries has been operating for a long time: companies are joining together to purchase large quantities of goods or services in bulk. Lower marketing costs for the seller, lower prices for the wholesale buyer, lower prices for the end user, while maintaining quality. Everybody wins.

You can take part in the first study of the labor market of Internet developers.
You can fill in the form here.

Thanks for attention!