Data Science Job Market Research in Ukraine, 2021

In order to identify trends in the field of Data Science in major cities of Ukraine (Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro), we conducted dynamic research of vacancies on the sites dou.ua and djinni.co from 2020. Based on these studies, we publish a report with the main insights every half year. A year ago we published the first annual report, and now we invite you to read the report for 2021.

During 2021, more than 2400 vacancies were posted in the field of Data Science (according to the category of Data Science on dou.ua and djinni.co, which includes data scientists, data engineers, data analysts, CV / ML / DL / NLP engineers). While in 2020 there were 1635 vacancies (growth by 46,8%).

If we compare 2020 and 2021, in 2021 the supply of vacancies is much higher (especially in the first half).

We also estimated the ratio of the number of vacancies in the field of Data Science to the total number of vacancies in IT (data dou.ua jobs.dou.ua/trends) by cities:

* 2021

As can be seen from the above graphs, although Kyiv is the leader in the number of vacancies,if we take the ratio of data science to the entire industry, more often in 2021 Lviv was in the lead.

The most popular on the above sites after the direct positions of a data scientist (619 vacancies) were data engineer (512 vacancies), in third place – the position of Data Analyst (338 vacancies). Demand for jobs in different categories of Data Science, taking into account the level of professionalism, is shown in the diagram below.

 

*Vacancies without the specified level of experience are not taken into account

Considering all areas of DS (except NLP / CV / DL engineers where there are very few vacancies in general), the largest increase in demand in 2021 compared to 2020 was for Junior ML Engineer (more than twice), as well as Junior Data Analyst and Middle Data Engineer (93%). If we look at the growth of demand in general for a certain position (without division by level), the largest growth in 2021 compared to 2020 was on Data Analyst (more than 90%).

As for the difference in demand by the level of experience, the graphs show that in 2021 most often looked for Data Engineer with experience level Middle, Data Scientist with experience level Junior, Junior ML Engineer, Data Analyst with experience level Junior, Middle NLP Engineer, Junior and Middle CV Engineer, Senior DL Engineer.

The total number of vacancies across the cities

As usual, most vacancies were located in Kyiv (1695 vacancies in 2021/ 1006 in 2020), but compared to 2020, Lviv (567/210 vacancies) is significantly ahead of Kharkiv (394/213 vacancies), followed by Odesa (201 / 117) and Dnipro (173 / 79).

* Some vacancies are taken into account several times because the sites often indicate several cities for one vacancy.

The total number of vacancies by the level of experience

As for the distribution of vacancies by professional level, the greatest demand, as in 2020, is for Junior (971 positions), but Middle (780 vacancies) have become more popular than Senior (603 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.

We also continue to analyze the companies that are most often looking for specialists in the field of Data Science. As before, the leaders in the number of vacancies are large service companies that have different projects and many customers. However, compared to 2020, the ratio of vacancies provided by the top 10 companies to the total number of vacancies decreased by 5 percentage points (in 2020 – 30.5%, in 2021 – 25.7%). This indicates that the overall growth in supply is due to smaller companies and the total number of companies working with projects in the DS.

Top 10 companies with the specified number of vacancies in 2021 and 2020

Conclusion

In 2021, as in 2020, the largest number of vacancies (among the above-mentioned cities and regardless of the level of experience) is available in Kyiv, but Lviv is ahead of Kharkiv and became the second after Kyiv. And if we consider the ratio of the number of vacancies in data science to the entire industry, in 2021 Lviv was often in the lead before Kyiv.

As in 2020, in 2021 vacancies for candidates without experience or with minimal work experience (up to one year) are critically low (111 vacancies in total). The most such offers in Kyiv (75), the least in Odesa (2):

The collected data shows that as in 2020, in 2021, high demand remains for data scientists, data engineers, and data analysts. As in 2020, the demand for product analyst specialists remains similar (there were 33 such vacancies in 2021), and there is also a new demand for data architects (16 vacancies) and Risk Manager/Consultant (13 vacancies)