In their study Yakov and Partners experts have looked into the present and future opportunities for IT graduates in Russia. According to the report “Job market demand for IT graduates,” the demand for IT degrees is steadily rising: the number of students in this field has doubled in the past eight years.
“More than 90,000 students were enrolled in bachelor’s and specialist’s degree programs in 2024. To put that into perspective, in 2016, the number of first-year IT students was below 45,000. It should be noted than 72% of the students study for free, benefitting fr om state-funded places, enrollment quotas, or employer-sponsored programs. That is to say, the government makes systematic efforts to build a talent pool for the IT industry”
Elena Kuznetsova, Director of Research Institute at Yakov and Partners
Yet another trend observed in Russia is the rapidly growing popularity of part-time education, the experts say. The number of students enrolled in part-time programs more than doubled between 2016 and 2024, reaching 18,700. However, 90% of part-time students pay for their studies (according to 2024 data). Experts believe that the popularity of part-time fee-based programs is due to the fact that most of the students either already have a job or are seeking to complete a second degree to expand their professional competencies.
Despite the growing number of newly enrolled students, universities have slowed down their expansion of degree programs in IT: while 5,000 to 7,000 new student places were added each year between 2017 and 2022, in 2024, their number increased by only 1,000. Just as before, more than 60% of IT graduates find a job in the country’s biggest cities: Moscow (and Moscow Region) and Saint Petersburg. The top seven regions wh ere IT graduates find employment also include Tatarstan, Novosibirsk Region, and Krasnodar Territory.
“Today, information technology is not simply an in-demand industry, it is becoming the foundation of national productivity. IT graduates don’t wait – they quickly integrate into the industry; their income is above the market average in the first year after graduation, and it is growing faster than inflation”
Fedor Chemashkin, CTO at Yakov and Partners
According to expert estimates, between 2016 and 2023, the median income of IT workers (a value separating the half receiving an income below the median from the half receiving an income above the median) who are one year after graduation increased by an annual average of 16.3%. The highest paid graduates work in IT and finance, earning up to RUB 250,000 two years after graduation. Experts believe that these two industries employ more than 50% of young IT talent.
Graduates with degrees in applied mathematics and cybersecurity are the most sought-after among employers: they receive the highest median income, and 10% of the highest paid specialists in these fields earn close to RUB 290,000.
The study has been conducted by Yakov and Partners for the Digitalization of Industrial Russia (CIPR) conference, which will be held in Nizhny Novgorod on June 2–8.“Today, we are witnessing how graduates of IT programs are quickly putting their knowledge to use and becoming competitive in the job market as early as their first year after graduation. This trend is a strong indication that the growing interest in IT education, combined with stable government support, is shaping a high-quality talent pool capable of addressing the strategic challenges of the digital transformation of the economy”
Olga Piven, Director and Co-founder of the “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia” conference
