At the Faculty of Applied Sciences of Ukrainian Catholic University, we continue to study the job market in Ukraine for positions related to Data Science. To do this, as before, we use data on the number of vacancies from the websites dou.ua and djinni.co. Based on the analyzed data, we publish a report with the main insights every six months. In July, we published a report for the first half of 2022, and now we invite you to read the report for 2022.
Number of vacancies in the field of Data Science
During 2022, 1555 vacancies in the field of Data Science were posted on these websites (according to the Data Science category on dou.ua and djinni.co, which actually includes positions such as data scientists, data engineers, data analysts, CV/ML/DL/NLP engineers, and related ones). During 2021, there were 2400 such vacancies (i.e., the supply of vacancies decreased by 35%).
If we compare the dynamics of the number of vacancies in previous years, then in March 2022, a sharp decline in the job market was due to the start of full-scale war in Ukraine, which exaggerated the decline in March 2020 (COVID-19 pandemic). In the summer, the situation in the job market slightly improved, but in the fall, the overall number of vacancies was low.
The ratio of the number of job vacancies in the field of Data Science to the total number of job vacancies in IT
*2021
If we consider the ratio of the number of Data Science vacancies to the total number of IT vacancies (according to dou.ua data https://jobs.dou.ua/trends/) by cities, then in January-June 2021, smaller cities such as Lviv, Odessa, and Dnipro were leading
*2022
In January-February 2022, Kyiv had the advantage, from the beginning of the war until June inclusive – exclusively Lviv, and in July-December, such cities as Kharkiv and Odessa began to appear in the leaders again.
Number of vacancies by specialties and experience level
The most demanded position on the aforementioned websites, as always, was the position of a data scientist (559 vacancies), followed by an ML engineer (337 vacancies) in 2022, and the third place was taken by a Data engineer (159 vacancies)
* Vacancies without a specified experience level were not taken into account.
If compared to the same period in 2021, the smallest decrease in junior-level job offerings in 2022 was for Data Scientists, as well as CV and ML engineers, while junior DL engineers had even slightly higher demand than in previous years. As for middle and senior levels, demand for Data analysts and Data engineers decreased the most, but there was a significant increase in demand for Data Scientists, ML engineers, and CV engineers (middle and senior).
Regarding the difference in demand by level of experience, it can be seen from the graphs that the number of vacancies for beginners decreased the most due to the war.
The total number of vacancies across the cities
* In terms of the total number of vacancies by cities, it should be noted that some job postings are counted multiple times, as websites often list several cities for one job.
In the first half of 2022, Lviv had the most job openings, for understandable reasons, followed by Kiev in second place. However, by the end of the year, the situation had changed, and Kiev had the highest number of job offerings (565 vacancies), followed by Lviv (509 vacancies), and then Kharkiv (95 vacancies). The smallest number of vacancies were in Odessa (49) and Dnipro (38).
The total number of vacancies by the level of experience
As for the distribution of vacancies by professional level, the highest demand was for Middle specialists (585 positions), followed by Senior (456 positions), and the lowest demand was for Junior positions (447 positions).
*Where the employer did not indicate in the title the required level of experience, we used the following distribution by year: Junior – up to 3 years of experience; Middle – 3-5 years of experience; Senior – 5+ years of experience. In the case when neither the level of experience nor the number of years of experience was indicated, the vacancy was not reflected in the diagram.
Distribution of vacancies by experience levels and cities
Consolidated data on the professional level, time, and city are given below.
As for the companies that are most looking for specialists in the field of Data Science, in the last six months, unlike previous years, it is difficult to highlight large companies that have had the most vacancies. While in 2020-2021, the top 10 companies were responsible for 25-30% of all vacancies, in 2022, only three companies stood out with slightly more vacancies than others: Data Science UA, Luxoft, and N-iX (8.5% of all vacancies).
Conclusion
In January 2022, the number of Data Science vacancies was even higher than in January 2021, but due to the worsening geopolitical situation in the country, a slow decline began in February 2022. It is expected that with the start of full-scale war in Ukraine, there was a sharp drop in the job market in March 2022, which surpassed the similar decline in March 2020.
If we look at the ratio of remote vacancies to the total number of vacancies (see chart below), as well as the ratio of job vacancies abroad to the total number of vacancies, there is a noticeable increase in such offers during times of war (especially for remote vacancies).
In the first half of the year, Kyiv lost its leadership in terms of the number of vacancies to Lviv, but the situation improved in the second half of the year and overall in 2022, Kyiv became the leader again. In cities such as Kharkiv, Odessa, and Dnipro, there were not many vacancies due to understandable reasons, and most of them were expected to be remote positions.
Due to the war, the demand for Junior-level specialists has decreased the most (more than twice compared to the same period in 2021), while the demand for Senior-level specialists has decreased the least (by 32% compared to 2021).
Regarding different positions in Data Science, the biggest decrease in job openings was for Data Analysts (down by 76%) and for Data Engineers (down by 69%). The decrease in job openings was the smallest for Data Scientists (down by 9.7%). For ML Engineers, NLP Engineers, and CV Engineers, the total number of job openings was even higher than in 2021.
Despite the significant decline in job vacancies in 2022, the number of job offers for Data Architects compared to 2021 increased (16 vacancies in 2021, 21 in 2022), and there is also a noticeable demand for Data Annotators (23 vacancies in 2022).