Polish
IT Community Report
2022

It turns out that senior / C-level / team lead positions are more likely to be hired on a B2B contract. But the salary difference between these job levels is only 1,800 net on the invoice. The biggest spike in salary was noted when you were promoted from a junior to a mid position, since the salary almost doubled.

For the second year in a row, IT Architect is the highest paid profession in the industry. IT Administrators and DevOps professionals saw the smallest increases in B2B rates compared to the rest of the specialties for 2021.

Specialists employed in Warsaw are still among the top earners compared to other large cities. However, it's also worth mentioning that there are higher "living" costs naturally occurring in state capitals. Comparing the data from the previous year, we note an average difference in salary with an increase of about 700 PLN net with the employment contract. In 2021, the city with the lowest earnings in IT was Lublin. However, even there, salaries increased on average by PLN 500 net.

In B2B and employment contracts, employees of large corporations with more than 10,000 employees and freelancers are top paid. In case of contracts of mandate / contracts for specific work, the highest salaries are paid by companies employing 500-1,000 people.

Still, people on B2B earn more, even without leave. However, the difference here is small enough that if you take about 20 days of leave, the two rates are equivalent, and in many cases an offer without paid leave is the worse option. This is worth taking into account when negotiating and when comparing specific offers.

While the vast majority of the IT industry devotes their time and energy to only one employer, given the necessary commitment to most tasks and staying after hours, this is understandable.

Similar to last year, survey respondents estimate their job performance on the level of 60-79%. We also noted that fewer people (by 3.5 percentage points) reported their productivity above 90%.

All companies in the IT industry struggle with flawed procedures, communication issues, and time pressure. That is why programmers' soft skills and problem formulation are so important to achieve their goal.

Based on our survey, we know that the IT industry can learn from its mistakes, and we hope the same is true of the obstacles shown in the chart. Compared to 2021, the level of dissatisfaction with the company atmosphere has increased by 5.8 percentage points in some cases. One simple solution to "cure" the industry may be training in effective self-management.

Unlike 2021, the vast majority of employees prefer to work remotely (an increase of 12%), which means we have adapted our lives to our needs and learned to separate work and private time. Attachment to office work also declined by 4%.

As in the last year, working remotely is the most preferred option. Interest in the hybrid solution declined by 9% in 2021.

Employees placed the need for flexible work on equal ground with improving team communication. Despite adapting to remote work, people still need the relationships they can build through interactions with team members. Apart from media funding (we have noticed a 17% increase in interest in such a benefit in comparison to 2021), we recommend more frequent meetings of team members and taking a closer look into forms of communication within the company.

Compared to 2021, interest in private life insurance has increased by 10%, while as many as 26% of respondents prefer an additional PLN 150 to their salary instead of a benefit.

In 2021, for the IT industry, growth was the most important factor (34% of respondents declared), after which money was the most important, as confirmed by 24% of survey participants. In only a year, priorities have shifted radically, nearly equaling the 3 most crucial factors: finances, environment, and learning opportunities.

The extending pandemic and limited contacts reflected in building better relationships with work colleagues. In this area compared to 2021, we observed an increase by 10%.

The most popular programming language among programmers is SQL. Next in line are last year's winner JavaScript as well as Python, which has surpassed Java. A significant drop in interest, by 49%, was noted in the technology indispensable in the web world, which is HTML/CSS.

Compared to 2021, interest in dedicated servers is dropping down by 10%, giving way to cloud solutions.

We have been following the issue of development motivation for years by running a job board in Bulldogjob. This factor is very important and employers are regularly examining what drives their employees to grow. For the third year in a row, we see that if someone is growing, it comes from a personal need and desire for self-improvement. It is worth asking in job interviews what motivates the candidate.

This is an extremely important question for us because we are ourselves IT blog creators and create valuable content for you. How you respond to this question confirms our belief that our work is needed and that we carry a lot of responsibility. More than 160,000 IT people visit our blog each month. We are happy to see that for the third year in a row, you're choosing IT blogs and services as the main place you get your knowledge from!

In each of the IT professions mentioned before, we see a strong tendency to develop to become an expert in one's field. On the other side, representatives of Data Science / ML and AI turn out to be confident in their choices, as only 10% of them plan to change their specialization. We saw the greatest need to change the field of activity for IT / BI Analysts with a score of 28%.

Developers and IT Administrators/DevOps would most likely switch places. IT Analysts like IT Architects are considering returning to programming or developing in the Data Science / ML / AI field, while Testers want to become Developers.

Compared to 2021, we have noticed an 8% increase in interest in team management from IT Analysts and IT Architects.

The most frequently cited source of knowledge about the labor market situation is once again friends. Our efforts to bring you up to date with information about the IT market are slowly paying off (an increase by 2% compared to 2021). Also, headhunters and IT recruiters' involvement in finding perfect candidates has increased slightly.

As many as 92% of survey respondents did not name a specific dream job. Which might suggest that the brand itself is not impressing candidates.

8.3% of respondents consider Google to be an ideal employer. This is the fourth time they have won this title. In the second place was Allegro, which swapped positions with Microsoft. Our sincere congratulations.

Invariably for years the level of earnings and the opportunity for development (also through interesting projects) determined IT employees to change jobs. Compared to 2020 and 2021 in the current report, you identified work atmosphere as the third crucial factor (an increase of 35%).

As the saying goes, “people make places.” It is evident in IT that this is an important aspect when changing jobs, since as many as 50% of respondents say that it is the team that makes them continue to work at a particular place. Work flexibility (45%) and salary (38%) rank below work atmosphere / co-workers and friends. This trend continues since 2019.

Money and growth are reasons why IT people are willing to change jobs. Noteworthy is the fact that in 2021, 3% more respondents mentioned salary as a major factor.

As many as 74% of respondents derive their knowledge of how much they want to earn from salary spreads from job offers. We know from experience that not every spreads from a job offer is the final salary of the person being recruited. Noteworthy also is the fact that a large amount of payroll reports is based on declared salary spreads, instead of employees' real salaries.

Confidence increases with experience as confirmed by the respondents in this question. Juniors (59%) reported the most concern when talking about finance, while Mid-Level Manager and Director/C-level employees feel the most secure. It is worth noting that high uncertainty at 42% is indicated by Mid / regular level specialists, which may be due to differences in expectations, uncertainty of their skills or the real market situation.

In negotiations, as many as 63% of men confirmed that they feel confident in discussing their salary. For women, this perception was confirmed by only 40% of the respondents. The smallest disproportion on this topic is found among nonbinary individuals.

Respondents identified uncertainty about their skills, missing the company budget (and falling out of the process), and general resistance to talking about finances among their biggest concerns relative to their negotiating position in determining salary.

We are pleased to see that as many as 73% follow the IT market, putting them in a stronger negotiating position. In combination with the high confidence, the candidate is guaranteed to succeed in finding a compromise with the potential employer regarding their mutual needs.

Compared to 2021, in the current report we have observed a 20% decline in relocation interest across Europe, with a 3% decline in Poland.

Similar to previous years, the IT market relies on transparency in the form of clear salaries, technology descriptions, and details of the projects for which they are recruited. From our experience, we can add that offers with spreads have 4.5 times more applications than those without any amount. While each specialty has set its other priorities slightly differently, candidates are becoming more intentional about their career paths each year.