Expectations of IT employers and candidates in Q1 2022
IT salaries continue to rise, m.in. specialists in the field of human resources. The IT industry salaries are on the rise, cybersecurity is in high demand, and candidates are more willing to apply for complex offers. – The past quarter on the IT job market was dynamic and several clear trends can be outlined – summarize the representatives of the:protocol, a recruitment platform for the tech sector, within the “IT Job Market Protocol Q1 2022” statement.
Remote, detailed and wide-ranging – IT employer offers in Q1 2022
The most common aspect of working in IT is still the salary. In this respect, there has been a growing trend for a long time and this was the case in the past quarter. Highest salaries offered to IT candidates in Q1 2022. via the:protocol service reached even PLN 30 000 – 40 000. They could count on such high salaries, for example. specialists with knowledge of advanced cloud technologies or cybersecurity. For comparison, offers with the lowest spreads are salary proposals at the level of 4000 or 5000 PLN, for example. for aspiring application architects, graphic designers or IT specialists. IT support.
Analysis of the most frequently expected technical competencies by employers in the past quarter shows that IT companies are looking mainly for middle-level specialists (65% of all IT specialists in the past quarter), while the majority of them are looking for specialists in the field of management and management. offers in Q1 2022) and seniors (25%). offers). However, the number of offers addressed to juniors is still decreasing. The top 5 most requested technologies, tools and programming languages are invariably Linux, SQL, Python, JavaScript and Docker.
The:protocol’s data also confirms that remote and hybrid work are still the most commonly suggested operating models by employers. The balance between the two has changed, however. While in 2021 and early 2022 the majority of offers for IT professionals concerned remote work, by the end of the quarter the hybrid model began to dominate. At the same time, a slight increase in the number of offers for stationary jobs was also noticeable.
– This trend can be linked to the gradual improvement of pandemic. However, it is clear that employers are very cautious about this issue. Probably also because a number of surveys indicate that IT professionals have adapted well to the remote and hybrid work model. Most of them do not want to return permanently to the office, they expect flexibility. On the part of employers, there is also a noticeable openness to individual or mixed solutions. For them, the most important aspect of remote work is now the ability to recruit professionals faster, regardless of where they live. Looking at the advertisements, however, we notice more frequent emphasis on e.g. future collective and team-building activities, or periodic project work in offices. Mass return to the office in IT certainly will not be. However, employers will be looking at employee needs and testing new operating policies carefully, in search of solutions that will keep talent in the organization longer, says Piotr Trzmiel, Head of Growth, the:protocol.
Testers and mid-level professionals targeted
Users of the:protocol in the first quarter of 2022 most often typed into the search engine positions such as “game tester”, “manual tester”, “tester” and “software tester”. These types of passwords accounted for as much as 11.6% of. of all typed keywords in the period January – March 2022. In terms of location – the greatest interest was shown in job offers in Warsaw and remote working, followed by cities such as Krakow, Wroclaw, Poznan and Katowice.
In the TOP 10 of the most frequently searched keywords by users, there were also such positions as frontend developer, data scientist and scrum master. When filtering positions by required technology knowledge, candidates most often looked for offers with knowledge of programming languages: Python, Java, JavaScript, C++ and framework .NET.
The most popular expectations of candidates and employers in the IT market are therefore convergent. The analysis of detailed data, however, allows us to identify those recruitments that required more effort from companies in Q1 2022. This m.in. Recruiting middle and senior level positions in cyber security, data science or niche programming languages.
Q1 2022 trends – openness to workers from the East, the growing role of cybersecurity and more detailed ads
The outbreak of war in Ukraine undoubtedly had a large impact on the labor market in the past quarter. The IT and HR sectors have reacted quickly by launching a number of support activities. On the:protocol platform, filters of offers and markings for candidates from Ukraine have been implemented. Employers are eager to use them, now almost 35 percent of. The offers placed on the website are marked “Recruitment open to Ukrainians”.
– There is noticeable interest in this type of offers, but it is not of mass character and it is not likely to be. The influx of workers from the East, not only from Ukraine, in the Polish IT industry has long been a fact. We are a very receptive market when it comes to tech specialists. Let’s remember that, according to estimates, there is a shortage of as many as 50 thousand. The number of IT employees in the EU as a whole is on the rise. European Commission this shortage exceeds even 600 thousand. of people. Employees from the East are valuable specialists, they are characterized by a similar work culture to ours, so they find themselves well on the Polish IT market – emphasizes Mariusz Witkowski, Product Owner, the:protocol.
In the first quarter of 2022, the tech labor market saw a growing demand for qualified specialists in IT security and related fields. Representatives of the:protocol also emphasize that they observe an increasing number of advertisements in the category of cyber security. In the past quarter, such specialists were sought by m.in. mobile networks, banks, organizations from the financial sector, energy, IT companies or state institutions, offering really attractive salaries, but expecting advanced experience. As many as 90 percent. These offers were directed to mid and senior citizens. Recruiting candidates for these types of positions is therefore more difficult.
The recruitment challenges posed by the “employee market” are, however, becoming more manageable for IT employers. Therefore, among the trends worth emphasizing in the past quarter, the specialists from the labor market also mention the slowly but consistently growing awareness of companies regarding the proper construction of advertisements. More and more employers recognize that a detailed description of projects is an effective tool that contributes to faster completion of recruitment.
– We are pleased when companies understand the importance of elements such as salary ranges, an interesting description of projects carried out, an outlined process of software development or a detailed description of the recruitment stages, taking into account all these issues in their ad. Information about an organization’s mission and vision, level of maturity, values, and established work culture is also increasingly important. We definitely see these listings being viewed more often, and job seekers are more likely to interact with them – using our tools to connect with recruiters, ask additional questions, and apply. Despite this, in the difficult IT market there is still surprisingly much to do to support employers in creating the highest quality offers – concludes Mariusz Witkowski.