One Out of Five IT Specialists in Bulgaria Plans to Change Job Within a Year

One out of five IT specialists in Bulgaria plans to change their job within a year, according to data from the study of technology startup for recruitment of IT staff Code Agents, conducted in September among 500 specialists in the sector.

In addition to those 21% planning to change their jobs, another 10% are actively looking for a new opportunity. A further 26% will accept a new proposal, but only if they receive a salary increase in the range of BGN 400 – 700. According to Ivaylo Vatovski, co-founder of the company, these results are quite surprising, because, contrary to the common opinion of the sector that there is a serious shortage of staff, it turns out that there are specialists, but companies fail to attract them with the right incentives. Employees who are not interested in new job offers are only 11.7%.

Company’s management is the most common reason behind the desire to change their employer, the programmers point out. Specialists also prefer executives to be in the IT sector to be able to report directly to them the job performed and get an adequate job evaluation by a manager who is aware of all the details relevant to the performance.

If they are not in a process of searching but receive a job offer from another company, IT specialists will say yes mainly on the back of a significant remuneration increase. A total of 26% want a minimum increase of between BGN 400 and BGN 700, 22% – between BGN 700 and BGN 1 000 and 25% – of up to BGN 1 500. High expectations are explained by the high levels of pay in the sector as it is. Only 7% of the employees in the sector receive up to BGN 1 000, 25% receive remuneration in the range

BGN 1 000 – 2 000, 20% – in the range BGN 3 000 – 4 000. The remaining 25% receive a net monthly remuneration of more than BGN 4 000. The survey shows that nearly 59% of the respondents are fully or largely satisfied with their remuneration.

Other important factors for good working conditions for programmers include the ability to work remotely, as well as challenging long-term projects. The survey suggests that 27% of the developers would like to work remotely, but only 11% have this opportunity. Employers show tendency to be adaptable to this demand and it’s more and more common to allow a certain number of days for work outside the office.

Industry specialists prefer not to make frequent switch between the projects they work on. Nearly 60% feel best if they have a large innovative project with a deadline of 6 to 12 months that also allows them to improve their skills and learn.

Comments on the results of the survey can be found in the interview with Ivaylo Vatovski of Code Agents for Bloomberg TV.