In 2025, 1,169 Mate academy graduates got their first IT job. The data is based on internal statistics of employed students who entered the job market without commercial experience.
The analytics provide a snapshot of what the path of a June in Ukraine looks like in 2025: from salaries and job search time to types of companies, work formats, and candidate profiles.
In 2025, 1,169 Mate academy graduates got their first IT job. The data is based on internal statistics of employed students who entered the job market without commercial experience.
The analytics provide a snapshot of what the path of a June in Ukraine looks like in 2025: from salaries and job search time to types of companies, work formats, and candidate profiles.
The average starting salary for graduates in 2025 was $715. For comparison, according to DOU, beginners with up to one year of experience earn an average of $400–600.
The highest starting salaries are recorded in Data Analyst ($1127) and DevOps ($988). This is followed by UI/UX ($768), Java ($707), Python ($688) and Frontend/Fullstack ($639). The lower averages are in Project Manager ($608), QA and Digital Marketing ($582) and Recruitment ($514).
The median job search time for Mate academy graduates is 49 days, with the fastest results in QA and DA, where students receive offers in as little as 29 days. This is consistent with the market picture, where analytics and testing remain among the most active hiring areas.
Median path to offer: 94 job reviews — 5 interviews — 3 test — 1 offer. The conversion from interview to test is 80,6% — this is a very high figure in the beginner segment. In the context of the market, this indicates that Junes can confidently compete at the communication and technical review stages. QA also stands out here — the largest number of interviews (6) with the smallest number of CVs (57).
During the year, graduates received offers from 730 unique companies. The top 20 employers cover only about 14% of all offers — this indicates a high fragmentation of the market and the lack of dominance of certain brands in hiring beginners.
Two-thirds of Juners start their careers in product teams. This correlates with the development of product R&D in Ukraine and the growth of domestic startups.
Outsourcing dominates in two areas — Java and Recruitment. Java remains the base technology for enterprise projects, where the service model prevails, and recruiting is traditionally concentrated in the agency and outsourcing format.
Half of candidates cite the desire to work online as the main motivation for entering IT. Financial stability is the second factor (22.2%).
The actual distribution of offers also shows a predominance of remote work (70.5%). At the same time, more and more employers are specifying an office or hybrid format requirement for junior positions, citing the need for rapid onboarding, mentoring, and quality control.
Mate academy has a dedicated team dedicated to developing partnerships with employers. Recruiters directly contact the team for recommendations of strong students, sometimes even before a job posting is posted.
Thus, in 2025, almost half (48.9%) of all offers came from partner companies. QA positions have the highest share of successful requests, followed by recruiting.
Active hiring by recruiters is often seen as an indirect indicator that companies are preparing to scale teams.
In particular, the team is expanding its cooperation with miltech companies and helping them fill vacancies with strong graduates interested in the industry for free. In 2025, 37 graduates received offers. The most offers are in Python and QA, but demand is gradually appearing in other technical and non-technical roles.
Ukrainian miltech has become a new industry with high technological content and a need for specialists of various levels. Companies often work as product teams, with quick releases and R&D focus. For veterans, this is an opportunity to move into IT in areas close to their experience.
The gender balance among the June graduates has almost evened out, and the share of women has increased significantly compared to last year (44.3% vs. 33%). Most graduates (83.9%) start working in IT while in Ukraine, although some are already working from abroad.
The majority have higher education, but it is rarely related to their chosen IT field (26.2%). For many, this is their first experience in the industry (81%) — they had no relevant background before studying.
Intermediate+ English, which is spoken by 60,9% of graduates, is usually sufficient to start a career: its level allows you to pass interviews and work with international teams.
For Junes, the Ukrainian IT market remains open: even without technical education and previous experience, you can get your first offer if you have practical skills, a basic understanding of processes, and a willingness to learn quickly.
Despite the development of AI, the number of new IT professionals is not decreasing, the requirements for them are changing. Routines are increasingly being automated, so junior specialists are expected to have the ability to think, ask the right questions, and evaluate the result. What is important for companies is not competition with AI, but the ability to work effectively with it — to understand where automation is effective and where human context, decisions, and responsibility are needed.
What is likely to remain in 2026:
