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What does IT outsourcing in Eastern Europe really cost, and where is the talent?

An ICT month costs $515 in Georgia and $5,513 in Estonia — a tenfold spread inside one region. Poland's 687,000 ICT workers outnumber Czechia, Romania and Hungary combined, and the pool has grown 8% a year since 2019.

ILOSTAT (ISIC Rev.4 J), Eurostat SBS, World Bank — 2024/2025 reference periods, 22 countries · verified as of

Monthly ICT wage — the floor under any outsourcing rate (US$)

Average monthly earnings in the ICT sector (ISIC Rev.4 J) at market exchange rates. A vendor's hourly rate card sits above this floor: it adds employer charges, bench time, management and margin. Rows whose latest ILOSTAT point is 2022–2023 are marked historical.

MetricValueSegmentPeriodSource
Estonia$5,513region's highest2025ilostat.ilo.org
Slovenia$5,1642025ilostat.ilo.org
Czechia$4,0552025ilostat.ilo.org
Slovakia$4,0432025ilostat.ilo.org
Latvia$4,0232025ilostat.ilo.org
Poland$3,7092025ilostat.ilo.org
Croatia$3,5452025ilostat.ilo.org
Bulgaria$3,2062025ilostat.ilo.org
Lithuania$2,8012025ilostat.ilo.org
Romania$2,6712025ilostat.ilo.org
Serbia$2,3642025ilostat.ilo.org
Hungary$1,9882025ilostat.ilo.org
Türkiye$1,6322025ilostat.ilo.org
Montenegrohistorical$1,181latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Bosnia and Herzegovina$1,1292025ilostat.ilo.org
Moldova$1,0412025ilostat.ilo.org
Ukrainehistorical$953latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Kazakhstanhistorical$950latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Albaniahistorical$875latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Azerbaijanhistorical$793latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Uzbekistanhistorical$684latest available2022ilostat.ilo.org
Georgiahistorical$515region's lowest2023ilostat.ilo.org

Talent pool: ICT-sector employment (thousands)

Everyone employed by information-and-communication companies, one definition across countries. Poland alone is bigger than Czechia, Romania and Hungary combined. Serbia and Uzbekistan are excluded: their series carry a break that failed our plausibility gate (see reconciliation).

MetricValueSegmentPeriodSource
Poland687klargest pool in the region2025ilostat.ilo.org
Türkiye375k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Ukrainehistorical301k2021ilostat.ilo.org
Czechia211k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Romania205k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Kazakhstanhistorical166k2022ilostat.ilo.org
Hungary164k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Bulgaria129k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Slovakia107k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Croatia76k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Lithuania73k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Azerbaijanhistorical60k2022ilostat.ilo.org
Latvia41k2025ilostat.ilo.org
Estonia40k2025ilostat.ilo.org

Where the pool is growing — ICT employment, compound growth since 2019

Compound annual growth of the same ILOSTAT series, computed in our graph. The Baltics and the Western Balkans grow from a small base; Poland and Türkiye grow fast from a large one, which is the rarer combination.

MetricValueSegmentPeriodSource
Bosnia and Herzegovina+12.4%/yrfastest-growing pool · derived2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Lithuania+11.9%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Moldova+9.2%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Türkiye+8.2%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Poland+8.1%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
North Macedonia+7.5%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Latvia+7.5%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Montenegro+6.8%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2024ilostat.ilo.org
Albania+5.8%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2024ilostat.ilo.org
Slovakia+5.7%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Croatia+5.6%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Bulgaria+4.9%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Estonia+4.6%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Hungary+3.9%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Czechia+3.7%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Romania+2.4%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Slovenia+1.3%/yrderived from the ILOSTAT series2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org
Georgia-3.9%/yrshrinking · derived2019–2025ilostat.ilo.org

Export intensity — ICT services as a share of all service exports

How much of a country's service exports is ICT. A high share means a mature vendor ecosystem, and also a market where the best teams are already booked by foreign clients.

MetricValueSegmentPeriodSource
Ukraine38.2%most outsourcing-dependent exporter2024data.worldbank.org
Serbia29.9%2025data.worldbank.org
Moldova27.8%2025data.worldbank.org
Romania26.0%2025data.worldbank.org
Bulgaria25.7%2025data.worldbank.org
Estonia25.0%2025data.worldbank.org
North Macedonia21.5%2025data.worldbank.org
Latvia19.0%2025data.worldbank.org
Czechia18.2%2025data.worldbank.org
Poland16.9%2025data.worldbank.org
Slovakia16.2%2025data.worldbank.org
Georgia15.2%2025data.worldbank.org

Vendor supply: IT & software micro-firms (NACE J62, 0–9 employees)

Freelancers and boutique studios — the long tail founders actually hire from. Every market added firms since 2021 except Hungary.

MetricValueSegmentPeriodSource
Poland189,606+52% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Czechia49,944+24% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Romania43,872+29% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Hungary28,873-17% since 2021 · only market shrinking2024ec.europa.eu
Slovakia22,095+29% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Bulgaria11,036+24% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Croatia10,118+20% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Lithuania9,491+45% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Estonia9,361+40% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Slovenia8,535+20% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Serbia6,519+56% since 20212024ec.europa.eu
Latvia4,515+13% since 20212024ec.europa.eu

Why vendor rate cards and these wages disagree

Outsourcing rate cards are quoted per hour and per vendor; the wages here are gross monthly earnings per employee from national labour statistics. The gap between them is employer charges, bench time, management and the vendor's margin — usually a multiple of the wage, never below it, which is why the wage is the honest floor for a budget. Three cautions. First, ILOSTAT converts wages at market exchange rates, so a currency slide (Türkiye) moves the dollar figure without moving the local one. Second, seven countries report their latest wage for 2022–2023; those rows are marked historical. Third, two employment series — Serbia and Uzbekistan — jump by a multiple in one year, a reporting break rather than hiring; both failed our plausibility gate and are excluded from the pool and growth sections, while Serbia's wage figure, which is continuous, stays. Ukraine's employment is last reported for 2021.

ILOSTAT — employment and earnings by economic activity (ISIC Rev.4) · World Bank — ICT service exports (% of service exports) · Eurostat — Structural Business Statistics, enterprises by size class

Methodology

Every number on this page is a fact node in the God of Startups Atlas — a knowledge graph where each metric carries its source URL, reporting period and evidence tier. Tier 1 here means ILOSTAT, Eurostat and the World Bank. Growth rates are computed in the graph from the same series and labelled as derived. Where a figure failed our plausibility checks it is excluded and said so, not silently dropped. Vendor hourly rate cards are not in the graph — they are tier-3 marketing data — so this page publishes the wage floor instead.

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Market cells behind this benchmark

Fact tables from the same knowledge graph — one market, every number with its source, period and evidence tier.

Poland devtools20Czechia devtools20Romania devtools20Hungary devtools20Eastern Europe Software & IT18Poland fintech20Czechia fintech18Romania fintech20Hungary fintech20Eastern Europe Fintech15

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