Impressive, right? Well, Poland is doing even better with 279.800 developers in 2018 and a significant growth from 2017 (254.500). Also, Ukraine has an amazing number of professional developers, 4 in every 1,000 inhabitants.

46,6% of the IT workforce is concentrated in Kyiv. The capital is attractive for large and small businesses and has a developed business culture. The government is supporting the development of IT industry and encourages cooperation with international companies. Furthermore, Kyiv is the most popular location in Ukraine for opening an R&D center. Companies such as Microsoft, Samsung Electronics, Wargaming, Boeing, eBay, Siemens, IBM all have offices in the Ukrainian capital.

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This is no wonder since Europe’s ecosystem is talent-rich all around. There are now more than 5.7 million professional developers in Europe, up by 200,000 in the past year. This compares to 4.4 million in the U.S.

A growing number of startups are opting for Eastern Europe

With such talent, slowly, but surely, Eastern Europe is rising in the tech ecosystem and is no wonder UK startups are flocking to these countries. According to Wired, before early-stage startups would fight to be part of London’s buzz, they are now turning to Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania as cheaper, less risky locations to make their mark.

“We looked at Romania, Ukraine and Poland,” says Christian Nentwich, founder and CEO of Duco, a London-based data engineering company that works with financial institutions. They settled on Wroclaw, a small city in the west of Poland. “We were very impressed with the level of education, language ability and positive references from banks and other tech companies,” says Nentwich.

Another sign of stability is that from all of Europe, the countries in Eastern Europe are the less dependent on migrant talent. Only 6% of the workforce is composed of immigrants. The UK tech ecosystem is the most heavily dependent on migrant talent: 44% of founders and employees of private tech start-ups are migrants.

Eastern Europe has an impressive number of fast-growing tech hubs

In the top 20 fastest-growing tech hubs in Europe by year-on-year growth of attendees to tech-related Meetup you will find a surprising number of cities from the East. Katowice (Poland) has a 101% year-on-year growth and ranks 4 in the overall top. It is closely followed by Sofia (Bulgaria) with a 77% growth and Lviv with a 57% rise.

The gender imbalance of the tech communities is less noticeable in Eastern Europe

Countries in Eastern Europe are far from having a perfect gender balance in the tech communities, but according to Atomico’s fourth ‘State of the European Tech’ report the top 10 countries for female participation at tech-related Meetup events across the region is dominated by countries from Eastern Europe. Albania is ranked the first with 33% female attendees and is closely followed by Lithuania and Romania with an attendance of 28%. You can see the full list here.

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