Top 5 Locations to Find a Dedicated Software Development Team for an EU Based Company

It can be difficult enough to hire a dedicated software development team that suits your needs in terms of time frame, talent and communication. What compounds this problem is that there are so many countries out there offering their software development professionals for EU companies, that this selection process alone can seem overwhelming. We are here to assist you in your quest to hire a team of developers who will get the job done right the first time, on time and on budget. Here are the top 5 countries you should be looking at.

1.Ukraine

With all of the events swirling around Ukraine of the past couple of years, it received a bad reputation. But, if you look on the bright side, Ukraine has a large and talented IT workforce. According to the IT outstaffing review, Ukraine has 105,000 developers and this number grows at an average of 20% a year. In fact, according to an PricewaterhouseCoopers Data, the Ukrainian IT sector could reach $8.4 billion dollars by 2025.

When you combine this with attractive market rates and a very low tax rate of 5% and that Ukraine is conveniently located within the same time zone as most EU countries, Ukraine is looking like a very worthwhile location to assemble a dedicated software development team. Ukrainian software developers are well versed in the most popular development technologies such as JavaScript, Python, PHP and C#. It also ranks number one in the amount of Unity 3D developers and second in terms of Scala, Javascript and Magento developers.

2. Bulgaria

Even though Bulgaria has a reputation as being one of the poorest nations in Europe, is quietly becoming a booming IT outstaffing powerhouse. With low costs and a robust education system, Bulgaria is attracting many European IT companies left and right. There have also been many improvement beneath the surface, which are only visible to people working on the ground such as the much needed reforms which were implemented to qualify for EU membership. Since it is an EU member, it has close ties to other businesses and companies in the EU and benefits from improvements carried out in the EU as a whole.

Bulgaria’s IT workers are well versed in C++, open source and Java and many other advanced programming technologies. The IT sector has benefited from massive reforms carried out in the mid 2000’s and it offers a highly skilled labor force. If we take a look at the downsides, the first thing we see is the cost. The price of outstaffing to Bulgaria is usually higher than outstaffing to countries in the Far East and Africa. Also, According to A.T Kearney, it has yet to implement EU data security directives which means that you are taking a huge risk if you have a European customer base. Until Bulgaria implements these directives from the EU, it is not suitable for handling customer information.

3. China

Speaking of the Far East, China still maintains its standing as a top outstaffing destination and continues to grow in popularity even today. China offers a vast supply of cheap outstaffing resources, and, to be more specific, the cost of labor is quite low. Also consider the cultural advantages. If an EU company cooperates with an Asia-based company, the cultural and language advantages alone can be crucial. Let’s take Shanghai as an example. In Shanghai, software engineers are not only advanced speakers of Chinese and Japanese, but also possess a third language since it is crucial for hem to find a job.

However, when we talk about English language proficiency, there can be some trouble. Workers in China usually have sub par English language proficiency, which of course, pose many obstacles for EU and western businesses as a whole. There is also very little intellectual property rights protection in China, so you may have a hard time sleeping at night worrying about delicate information being leaked to competitors. Last, but not least, the time zone can can a burden for EU companies. As is the the case with all EU countries, China is many time zones away, which could make communication almost impossible.

4. Egypt

Middle Eastern and African markets are a growing outstaffing destination for many EU companies. Such countries include Israel, Ghana and South Africa just to name a few. If we zero in on Egypt, we see that not only does it have one of the largest IT workforce’s in the Middle East, but this labor force is also young and multilingual with a competitive costs structure and an outstanding infrastructure. The Egyptian population numbers about 85 million and half of them are below the age of 25. The Egyptian government is handing out tax breaks for prospective outstaffing companies and many experts projects that combined with the low labor cost and quality language skills, Egypt is on pace to take over India in terms of outstaffing work volume.

Perhaps the only downside to Egypt is its location. The Middle East is a politically unstable region and a war could erupt at a moments notice. Due to this reason, Egypt can be a huge turnoff for western investors.

5. The Philippines

South East nations as a whole are gradually making their presence known to EU companies and among the fastest growing of Hesse nations are the Philippines. The IT outstaffing sector is booming and, perhaps best of all, it offers one of the lowest telecommunications and wage costs of among the top IT outstaffing destinations. The Filipino outstaffing scene is dominated by back-office outstaffing and traditional contact center services which could pose some problems since software development experience could be difficult to find. Having said this, if you are in search of application and legacy application development, the Philippines could be the best choice for your since Filipino workers are are .NET and JAVA wizards.

On the negative side, the Philippines have the same problem as their neighbor, China. The time zone is and will always be a problem for most EU businesses and the currency in the Philippines has experienced some appreciation which increased wages by almost a third.

At the end of the day, it is up to you to decide what factors are important for you and your business when choosing a location to assemble a software development team. It is important to be able to forecast and estimate project timeframes and costs. Each country will have its advantages and disadvantages so it is up to you to set priorities and benchmarks when deciding how you would like to achieve these benchmarks and who you would like your partner to be. And you can always check the Appdeveloperlisting.com website to find the lists of top software development companies for your project.