Ukraine has a very strong technical education and R&D foundation inherited from the times when Ukraine was the main Tech hub of the USSR. It’s located in the center of Europe and has very similar cultures to many Western and Central European countries. Ukraine is rich in leading technology skills such as .Net, PHP or Java as well as some rare / new high-demand skills (mobile, iGaming development, CRM, ERP, etc.).

Outsourcing to Ukraine can lower down development budgets by 40% to 60% (Ukrainian IT workforce is more than twice less expensive than in Western Europe) and/or allow EU and US companies to do more for less money. IT services export volume is 1.15 billionn Euros (High-Tech Initiative 2012) Main ITO cities are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsks, and Odessa Number of IT graduates – 30 000 / while the number of STEM graduats reaches 670 000 per year.

The corporate tax rate is 19 % (will decrease to 16 % in 2014), but only 5 % for IT companies. IT specialists employed with IT companies are subject to reduced personal income tax rate of 5% (compared to the current rates of 15% and 17%). Software development, Internet-sites and /or online-services are exempt from VAT.

Employers’ social security contributions is 36% based on gross remuneration (31.8% to the Pension Fund, 2.9% to the Social Security Fund, 1.3% to the Employment Insurance Fund) In addition 0.66 – 13.6% to the Fund for Social Insurance depending on the level of risk of accidents for enterprises belonging to certain sectors of the economy. The minimum gross wage is cc 115 Euros per month, while the average monthly gross wage cc 320 Euros.