The share of IT professionals who work more than one job has increased over the year: last year there were 8% of them in Ukraine and 11% abroad, and this year it is already 12% and 15%.
The share of IT professionals who work more than one job has increased over the year: last year there were 8% of them in Ukraine and 11% abroad, and this year it is already 12% and 15%.
This is stated in the DOU study, which is based on the responses of 13,054 IT professionals to the summer salary survey. It is also compared to last year, when 14,906 specialists were surveyed.
Most often, specialists have additional part-time work (6% of IT professionals).
In 2024, 12,2% of 13,054 respondents have an additional job, compared to 8,1% last year.
Part-time IT specialists and IT professionals in military service are most likely to have additional work in IT (19%). Bench specialists are significantly less likely to have additional work in IT (9%).
Experienced professionals are the most active in looking for additional employment. 14% of IT professionals with five years of experience have an additional job, compared to 9% of those who have been working for two years or less. Most often, these are specialists at the Senior, Head, Tech Lead, and Architect levels. And Team Leads are noticeably less likely to have an additional job.
The most successful multi-job workers are designers and UI/UX specialists (33% of them have a second job), security specialists (28%), DevOps, SRE and sysadmins (23-24%). QA specialists, project management specialists, HR and recruiters, game designers, sales and business development specialists, support and Customer Success specialists and finance specialists work in multiple jobs very rarely — less than 10% of them have a second job in IT.
In 2024, 11,7% of 13,054 respondents have pet projects. Last year, the share of such specialists was 11,5%.
Most often, these are pet projects without income — 9,4%. With income — 2,2%.
Specialists who work part-time or are freelancers have the most time for pet projects — over 20% of them have their own pet projects.
Game designers are the most likely to have pet projects: every third one. Developers (17% have projects) and artists/animators (16%) are in second place. Moreover, developers and game designers are more likely to do them for fun — only 15-17% receive income from them.
Pet projects have many top-level technical specialists: 28% of CTOs/Directors/Heads of R&D have them. 17% of Architects and Tech Leads also have their own projects.
21% of interns also have time for pet projects. And specialists from Junior to Team Lead are the least likely to work on their own projects: only 11%.
Every fifth pet project of Ukrainian IT professionals brings in income. Experienced specialists are more successful in monetizing additional employment: the share of profitable pet projects among Tech Lead and Architect reaches 40%, and among top-level technical specialists (CTO/Director/Head of R&D) — 46%.
This year, such specialists account for 9,9% of the total number, and in 2023, they were 9%. The growth was due to greater involvement of IT specialists in volunteer initiatives for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in the field of miltech. IT specialists in Ukraine are more likely to be involved in such projects than specialists abroad.
Most often, volunteer IT projects are handled by experienced IT professionals: 26% of Architects, 24% of top-level technical specialists (CTO/Director/Head of R&D), and 18% of Tech Leads and heads of departments devote their time to them.
Tech leaders, architects, top-level technical specialists (CTO/Director/Head of R&D), as well as security specialists most often devote their time to miltech projects for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Heads of areas are more likely to engage in free mentoring in the IT field.
8.4% of IT professionals devote time to work and projects not related to IT. Last year, this number was 7%.
Additional work not in IT — 5,6% (4.5%).
Unpaid projects/volunteering not in IT — 2,9% (2.6%).
The most common people who have an additional job outside of IT are freelancers (12%), those who work part-time in their main IT job (12%), those who have lost their IT job (10%), as well as beginners (14% among those who have been working in IT for up to a year) and non-technical specialists (12% of marketers and 11% of sales and Customer Success specialists each).
Top-level technical specialists (CTO/Director/Head of R&D) also quite often have additional work not related to IT — 12% of them said this.
3% of Ukrainian IT professionals devote their time to volunteer projects not related to IT.
