every seventh graduate in the Russian Federation has IT competencies – Kommersant

Every seventh graduate of Russian universities has IT competencies, said Yulia Goryachkina, Director of the Personnel for the Digital Economy direction at ANO Digital Economy. HR forumorganized by Kommersant Publishing House. Despite this, according to her, the shortage of IT specialists in the country remains, and more than 30 million Russians currently fall into the “qualification hole”.

“There is definitely a shortage of personnel in the IT sector. In our paradigm, IT specialists are those who have graduated from applied mathematics, computer science, and information security. This is the core of IT specialists. These guys are missing at least a million. In Russia, the potential of IT is not fully unpacked, although at the same time every seventh graduate now has IT competencies. Nevertheless, this is not enough, and this is confirmed by large IT companies,” said Ms. Goryachkina.

The expert also added that given digital trends, 30 million workers or 40% of the workforce in Russia today have a skills mismatch, 12 million of them will need more than 6 months of training. “Now a lot of juniors have entered the IT market, who immediately want to receive a salary of 200 thousand rubles. per month, while having a lack of skills. In this regard, the market is really oversaturated, and large companies need middles and seniors, so HR is under a very heavy load. It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, strictly observing this qualification framework,” Yulia Goryachkina said.

As before wrote “Kommersant”, the majority of IT students (82%) plan to work or are already working in their specialty, while almost two-thirds of these students positively assess their professional prospects in the Russian Federation.

After the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, IT specialists began to leave Russia en masse. To stop the outflow of personnel, the government approved measures to support the industry, including tax cuts, soft loans, grants and deferment from the army. In April, the press service of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko reported that the demand for IT personnel from Russian companies at the beginning of 2023 increased by 63% compared to the previous year, to 59,000 vacancies in this area.