How much do Ukrainian game developers earn: salaries in 2018

On Friday, December 7, there was a presentation of gamedev map of Ukraine, which is a research of the game development industry in Ukraine, its main trends and technologies. During the event the results of yet another salary survey by the Values Value company were presented.

According to the research, average salary of an employee of a Ukrainian game development company is $1,375.

Anastasia Manina, Chief Brand Officer of Values Value, described current market trends, “According to the results of a big salary survey in the game development industry of CIS countries the median salary at the market decreased by 7% in 2018 as compared to 2017. At the same time an increase in median salary of 14.6% was observed in Ukraine. According to our data, salaries of highly-qualified and sought-after specialists increased by 2-3 times as compared to the previous year.”

The research is performed for the second year in a row. The first survey was conducted in March, 2017, while the second took place in February-April 2018. In two years 2,046 respondents took part in the survey (834 respondents in 2017 and 1,212 in 2018, less nonrepresentational answers and apparent errors).

The majority of respondents work in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Male and female respondents represent correspondingly 72% and 28% of the total number of survey participants. The authors of the study outline that in 2018 women received less – their median salary decreased by $100, that is almost -10%.

Almost all respondents have one or several university degrees. The biggest age group is 26-28 years.

The following keys are used in the tables:

  • N2017 – number of respondents in 2017;
  • N2018 – number of respondents in 2018;
  • M2017 – median salary in 2017 (a median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample);
  • M2018 – median salary in 2018;
  • Diff, % – difference between median salaries of 2017 and 2018.

Junior software developers in Ukraine received $515 per month, that is $85 less than the previous year (- 14%). Senior software developers got monthly salaries of $2,350 in 2018 instead of $2,500 as during the previous year (-6%). On the other hand, the average salary of middle software developers increased by 32% as compared to 2017.

Salaries of art specialists (the analysis covered responses from 567 artists, designers and animation specialists for 2017-2018).

The authors of the research note that average salaries of both game designers and art specialists in 2018 left as in 2017.

In 2018 middle QA specialist probably became more valued, as their median monthly salary was $1,300 (+62.5% as compared to the previous year).

During the research salary expectations of game development specialists were compared with current market offers:

Previously we have announced the rating of the largest game development companies in Ukraine (both the Ukrainian companies and the ones having big offices in Ukraine).

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