Survey on C-Level Salaries in the Ukrainian IT Industry in 2022

CEO Kateryna Osadchuk and the Indigo Tech Recruiters conducted the third annual survey on C-Level IT salaries.

We’d like to share these results and thank Fint8, in particular, Anton Shulyk and Andrii Tertyshnyk, for helping us process the data.

Kateryna Osadchuk, CEO of Indigo Tech Recruiters

Few managers in the world have the experience that the Ukrainian top managers are going through right now— they need to save their business, people, and the country at the same time.

And on top of that, they have to look for new ways to develop their business and sources of income and learn to work during the crisis.

Managers who can carry their company through the turbulence and help it adapt to the new reality are highly valued. But are they rewarded as highly? Learn about how the war in Ukraine affected the income and motivation of Ukrainian IT companies’ top managers from our new salary survey.

First of all, we want to thank all the people who completed the questionnaire. We promised to donate 100 hryvnias per questionnaire to the Come Back Alive fund. In total, 302 top managers answered our questions, and we got 253 questionnaires after cleaning the data. Nevertheless, we donated $1,000 to the fund to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Follow this link to see the invoice.

Out of 253 questionnaires, 176 were filled out by men and 77 by women. We can see a slightly lesser disproportion in the median, compared to the 2021 survey. Women made 40% less money than men last year, and now this difference is 35%.

But speaking of mean numbers, women’s earnings are 42% lower than men’s.

At the same time, conclusions are better drawn after considering salaries at individual positions and whether they differ there since the figures presented here are generalized. For example, CTO positions, which are among the ones with the highest pay, are mostly held by men, whereas HRD positions—the least well-paid ones—are mostly by women.

Most survey participants (67.5%) were aged between 30 and 39 years.

At $7,000, their median earnings stand out from those of younger or older peers.

That is the highest level among all ages.

Top managers between 25 and 29 have the lowest earnings among all participants—a median salary of $3,000.

The difference between the mean salaries of top managers aged 21–29 and 30–39 is almost 57%.

Still, the highest earnings among all top managers were seen at $19,200 in the top 10% aged above 45.

We conducted another survey in February 2022 but didn’t manage to process the data before the war broke out, and then it became irrelevant, so we collected new data.

The interesting thing is that this number was $32,000 for the top 10% in the February survey.

But overall, it’s odd to see a decrease in the salaries of top managers above 40. Salaries are lower across the entire fork in people aged 40–44 compared to their colleagues at 30–39.

Analysis by industry shows the highest median compensation being offered to managers in IoT, blockchain, e-commerce, and telecommunication.

The top 10% of the highest-paid managers work in the digital industry, e-commerce, consulting, gamedev, and IoT, with earnings of $150,000 at the 90th percentile.

Compared to early 2022, the median earnings of managers in these five industries changed by no more than +/- 10%, except for blockchain where they increased by 42%, from $6,000 to $8,500.

The top managers’ median salaries do not differ significantly between new companies (under three years) and companies aged 5 to 20 years. They pay around $7,000 to their key employees.

Companies older than 20 years show a major difference, paying $5,000 to their managers—40% less than in those between 5 and 20 years, 35% less than in new companies, and 10% less than companies in the 3–5-year range.

This gap is especially notable in the top 10% of most-paid company managers. These kinds of managers have salaries starting from $14,100 on average and going as high as $15,000. In companies older than 20 years, however, top managers in the same category are paid 47–56% less than in younger companies.

The more employees a company has, the more it pays its top managers. Though the median figure shows that this doesn’t apply to companies with more than 800 employees.

Analyzing the change in compensation depending on the team size, we can draw the following conclusions:

–Companies with 0 to 200 employees pay equally to their C-Level managers—$5,000-6,000 (median). Analyzing the top 10th, 25th, and 75th percentiles, we can say that the gap in earnings is insignificant. There is a difference at the 90th percentile: $12,000 versus $15,000 (up to 25%).

–Companies employing between 201 and 800 people have the broadest gap in compensation, paying their managers $8,000 a month. Also, the $15,000 paid to the top 10% of managers in these companies is among the highest earnings.

–Companies employing more than 800 people offer monthly salaries of $17,500 to their top 10 best-paid workers. That is 45% higher than C-Level managers have in companies with 21 to 80 people on their teams and ~16% higher than in the rest of the companies.

Most new top managers get $3,783 on average.

However, the compensation tends to increase starting from the second year at the top manager’s position. Managers with one to five years of experience in these positions can ask for median salaries of $5,000–6,000, and the top 10% get from $6,300 to $12,800 (which is quite a big difference).

Most-paid managers have served over ten years at their position and enjoy average earnings of $9,825 with maximum earnings of $16,000.

The company’s country of registration matters. Even though the selection had only six managers working for companies registered in the US or Canada, they had the highest monthly salaries: $23,000 at the median, $32,500 in the top 25%, and $37,000 in the top 10%.

Those who work for companies registered in Europe and Ukraine have equal median salaries and uneven distribution of income in each percentile group. Managers working at Ukrainian companies earn $2,500 less on average than their peers at European companies in the top 25% income group. Ukrainian managers at the 90th percentile earn almost $1,200 more than European company managers.

There’s a pronounced difference in how managers in charge of 1–3 people are compensated versus those in charge of more people. The former have a median income of $3,500, and that of other managers with bigger teams starts from $6,500.

The most significant difference is observed in managers with teams of over 15 people, where the responsibility is greater and the expected result is higher.

A relatively small group of managers with no subordinates can have higher median salaries than managers in charge of 1–3 people, but their maximum in the fork is the lowest at the 90th percentile.

A minor trend and pattern can be observed by looking at the manager’s income and the company’s annual turnover. For example, with turnovers starting from less than $1 million and going up to $30 million, there is a gradual minor increase in earnings. In other words, the higher the company’s turnover, the higher the median earnings of its managers. However, there is no such pattern in percentile groups.

The top earnings (the 90th percentile) of managers working for companies with turnovers above $50 million show a significant deviation, being $5,000–10,000 higher than those of managers in other categories. However, they don’t have this steep advantage at the median and other percentile groups, and sometimes even make less than managers in companies with different turnovers.

Managers’ salaries clearly don’t differ significantly between the company types, and that applies to all managers across all percentile groups.

Comparing the numbers to the ones we got in February, we can say the earnings of managers in outstaffing companies came closer to the level of other companies.

In February, outsourcing company managers made 38–50% more than managers in other companies. They still have the first place, but now the gap is only 13% as their earnings shrank from $9,000 to $6,800 a month.

And of course, let’s look at the salary forks of individual positions. This one is summarized, but we will gradually introduce more detailed overviews of each position that we have enough data on.

Top managers’ earnings vary between different positions. The highest salaries are paid to founders who are also CEOs (from $5,000 to $18,000), VP of Engineering (from $5,450 to $14,300), and CTOs (from $6,300 to $18,700).

Country Manager enjoyed the highest earnings at $20,700.

Apart from that, quite high median earnings were reported at the positions of CFO/VP of Finance ($7,500), COO/VP of Operations ($6,750), CEO (hired as opposed to founder—$6,500), and General Manager ($5,750).

Median earnings didn’t change significantly compared to February, but there was a notable decrease in maximum allowable earnings at the 90th percentile. On the other hand, its dynamics were positive, compared to early 2021. That’s no surprise—the IT industry had a good year, and earnings were on the upward track.

Most top managers have an annual bonus, but almost as many have no bonus at all. Almost a quarter of managers have a quarterly bonus.

Some managers enjoy several combined bonuses.

These statistics are different from what we recorded at the start of the year when only 34% had an annual bonus and only 35% had no bonus.

There were no major changes in other bonus formats, such as semi-annual or monthly.

Managers named company revenue (29%) as the main KPI at the start of the year, whereas now they say it’s profit (40%), followed by revenue (34%) and department’s plan implementation (32%).

The percentage of managers who have no KPIs increased from 30% early in the year to 32% these days.

Most top managers receive their compensation as a fixed part plus a bonus (45%). But there are also quite a lot of those who only get the fixed part (31%), which is rather odd for top managers who are responsible for the company’s overall performance and should also get a variable part of their pay depending on said performance.

Managers are the most motivated by flexible schedules (65%), medical insurance (47%), and payment for additional education (46%). The same factors were named as the top three at the start of the year, but their proportions were different: flexible schedule accounted for 40%, education for 33%, and medical insurance for 30%.

Speaking of a top manager’s compensation package, here’s how it looks:

Companies most often offer flexible schedule (65%). Medical insurance is provided in 47% of cases, and the company is willing to pay for employees’ education 46% of the time. The other types of compensation were rarely mentioned. But options were among the important ones—20% of top managers have them.

Few managers in the world have the experience that the Ukrainian top managers are going through right now— they need to save their business, people, and the country at the same time.

And on top of that, they have to look for new ways to develop their business and sources of income and learn to work during the crisis.

To sum it up, the compensation grew 12% compared to the prior period (early 2021). We wonder whether this trend will last into next year.

Out of 253 questionnaires, 176 were filled out by men and 77 by women. Compared to the 2021 survey, the median disproportion is slightly less pronounced: women made 40% less than men last year, and now this difference is 35%.

Analysis by industry shows the highest median compensation is offered to managers in IoT, blockchain, e-commerce, and telecommunication. The top 10% of the highest-paid managers work in the digital industry, e-commerce, consulting, gamedev, and IoT, with earnings of $150,000 at the 90th percentile.

In terms of the earnings’ dependence on the role, the highest salaries are paid to founders who are also CEOs (from $5,000 to $18,000), VP of Engineering (from $5,450 to $14,300), and CTOs (from $6,300 to $18,700). Apart from that, quite high median earnings were reported at the positions of CFO/VP of Finance ($7,500), COO/VP of Operations ($6,750), CEO (hired as opposed to founder—$6,500), and General Manager ($5,750).

The highest earnings were reported by top managers working for companies with a turnover between $20 million and $50 million employing 201–800 people and founded in the USA,

as well as top managers having more than 15 subordinates and more than 10 years of experience as an IT top manager.

The demotivating factors vary greatly between the participants. The gaps between categories are minor, but we have the top 5:

5th place—distrust culture (chosen by 33% of respondents)
4th place—lack of freedom and the rights to make and implement decisions (35%)
3rd place—inadequate salary (36%)
2nd place—the lack of competent and effective management (37%)
1st place—the absence of work-life balance (41%). But is it really the employer’s problem rather than the choice on the manager’s part? The question stands.

Speaking of work format, 60.5% of top managers can now choose to work from home or office (72% in 2021), 29.2% work remotely (15% in 2021), and only 7,9% work in offices (11% in 2021 and 51% pre-COVID in 2019).

Check more numbers and facts in Salary Survey, a detailed presentation by Indigo Tech Recruiters.

Our survey has general information about top managers’ salaries.

In a short time, we plan to write a cycle of articles with a detailed overview of compensation at specific positions. We have collected many interesting facts, such as:

the salaries of the CEO and CTO depending on the company’s area and type of work, country of foundation, number of employees, education, working experience, etc.
or how satisfied CEOs and CTOs are with working for their companies depending on the salary, compensation package, schedule, etc.

We hope that this information will help you make the right decisions in life and management.

And yes, we’d like to know if you found the survey helpful.

Send your feedback here: info@indigo.co.ua

By Kateryna Osadchuk, CEO of Indigo Tech Recruiters