Which programmers are sought after by German companies?
The German IT market is one of the largest and fastest growing technology markets in Europe. With the accelerated growth of more large companies, there is a growing demand for, among other things, increased data security and the implementation and development of popular cloud or big data solutions. At the same time, there is a growing demand for IT suppliers and specialists who will be able to provide businesses with constant and rapid technological development and security of systems and data. This, however, may raise some issues. What exactly is the situation on the German market and which programmers are most sought after by German companies?
German companies' demand for IT specialists
According to expert forecasts, the continued growth of the German technology market could mean it will be worth around $129 billion in 2025. However, the dynamic digitization may be slowed down considerably due to the problems that large and medium-sized companies in Germany are increasingly facing. One of the main obstacles that could contribute to the slowdown is the increasing shortage of IT specialists available on the market. According to a study by digital association Bitcom, there were nearly 140,000 vacancies for programmers at the end of 2022 - an infamous record and an increase of more than 40% from last year. The shortage of programmers is now a problem already affecting approx. 74% of German companies, which also marks a significant increase - in 2022, a shortage of programmers was reported by some 65% of companies.
The shortage of qualified IT experts is mainly due to the fact that young programmers educated in Germany are choosing to further develop their careers abroad, with the United States or Switzerland among the most popular destinations. An important obstacle to technological development or building an internal IT team is also the high expectations of customers towards German companies, as these have for years been associated primarily with excellent products and attention to even the smallest details. As a result, customers expect the highest quality of service, and consequently the bar is also set high for programmers and IT suppliers. Companies focused on quality are ready to start cooperation only with specialists who are able to meet high requirements and meet the expectations and needs of the company.
What's more, experts predict that the problem of shortage of specialists in the German market will not only not be solved in the coming years, but may get much worse.
Which specialists are in demand in the German market?
At the beginning of 2023 (January/February), there will be as many as 10,000 active offers for developers on the German market - a number that has dropped significantly compared to the end of last year (November/December), when the number of active ads was 14,000. German developers will find it easiest to find work in Berlin and Munich - these are the cities with 15 and 10% of all active offers, respectively. The most desirable skills that developers sought in Germany should have are JavaScript/JAVA, React and TypeScript.
The top most sought-after IT professionals in the German market also include software developers, system analysts, database, network and administration specialists, consultants and IT engineers.
According to experts, the demand for IT specialists in the German market will grow. Already in the near future, companies will be looking even more intensively for experts in areas such as Machine Learnig, BI systems, open source programming and Net, C# and C++ programming. At the same time, new programming languages will begin to gain in popularity - currently the most promising seem to be Go and Scala, among others. Many European programmers declare that these are the ones they will be learning in the near future.
Solutions
One of the more attractive solutions to the labor shortage in the German market is the outsourcing of specialists. Thanks to cooperation with a proven business partner the company can easily implement and develop new solutions without having to take into account staff shortages in its own team or the lack of experts available on the domestic market. In the case of German companies, the best direction to look for responsible and experienced specialists is Eastern Europe.
Polish programmers and developers have for years been considered among the best not only in Europe, but also in the world - as proven by their high places in international rankings. They owe their extensive experience to working for large companies and carrying out projects for many international clients. Moreover, Poland can boast access to one of the largest resources of developers among all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We wrote more about the advantages of the Polish IT market in the article, Why Germans should cooperate with Polish companies in IT outsourcing and Why IT nearshoring between Germany and Poland pays off.
Poland is currently one of the most attractive destinations for outsourcing IT services - especially for companies from the DACH (Germany-Austria-Switzerland) region. This is due not only to access to highly qualified and versatile specialists, but also to the favorable price-to-quality ratio of IT services offered. We wrote more about the profitability of IT outsourcing in Poland in the article: How much does outsourcing cost in Poland?
Finding programmers with the right background - especially in a market experiencing a severe shortage of candidates - is a difficult and time-consuming task. Not only does it consume financial resources for recruiting efforts, but it also consumes time and attention that an internal team could devote to the company's key tasks. Expanding an internal IT team or hiring an entire team in the area of marketable competencies (including JavaScript/JAVA, React and TypeScript) will help save both time and money - while guaranteeing high quality.
