This is the latest edition of the largest and most detailed survey on Polish IT. You'll find information about who works in IT, how they work, how much they earn, and what Technologiess they use. This year, we've added a section on mental health. In total, we’ve prepared 244 charts.
Data indicates that IT specialists are staying in their positions longer, and advancement requires more experience than before. The growing number of specialists in the market gives employers a greater choice and the ability to more thoroughly verify candidates. Companies expect real expertise and specialist skills, not just a particular length of service.
Currently, even a junior must have specific knowledge to stand out in the market, while seniors are increasingly required to have, for example, advanced knowledge of system architecture, process optimization, or mentoring skills. We also see this in current recruitments, where clients are significantly raising candidate expectations.
At the same time, the importance of soft skills and team fit is growing. Employers place increasing emphasis on the ability to collaborate, flexibility, and alignment with organizational culture. At Scalo, we notice that creating stable and effective teams requires a comprehensive approach – not only technical skills are crucial, but also interpersonal competencies and long-term engagement. It's worth highlighting that some of these competencies, especially those related to organizational culture and team management, develop over years and require conscious shaping.
These trends are also visible globally, as confirmed by the Future of Jobs 2025 report published in January by the World Economic Forum. The global analysis indicates that career paths in IT are becoming increasingly demanding, and expectations for candidates are rising, especially in the context of the dynamic development of technology and automation. Employees must not only acquire new skills but also adapt to dynamic changes in the job market, where both technical knowledge and interpersonal skills matter.
The IT world is dynamic, but one thing remains constant – the more strategic and comprehensive the role, the more years of experience are needed to achieve it. Statistics clearly indicate that the IT Architect is the position requiring the most tenure, reflecting a long and demanding career path. It is a role for experts who not only understand technology thoroughly but also anticipate the future of systems, creating solutions that will function for years.
Project Managers and Product Owners hold the second position, showing that managing IT projects is no easy task and requires years of practice and experience working with technical teams.
At the opposite end is Data Science / ML / AI, which may have several reasons. Firstly, it is a relatively new field, and secondly, the development of tools and automation of processes allows specialists to achieve competencies faster than before, which once required years of practice.
An interesting trend is that Programmers have shorter average experience than IT Administrators and DevOps specialists. This may result from the high supply of juniors in the market and more frequent changes in positions within programming, where new technologies replace old ones, and career paths are less linear than in system administration.
So, does the length of IT experience matter? From this data, one can conclude that not every role in IT requires decades of experience, but the strategic and managerial ones certainly do. Will long tenure still be key? Technological changes suggest that in the future, flexibility and the ability to learn will be valued, not just the number of years in the industry. Will these statistics look completely different in a few years?