How Is Poland Avoiding the Global Talent Shortage?

The global talent shortage remains one of the top risks facing organizations worldwide, a concern first identified by a 2019 Gartner Survey and still evident today. Likewise, recent global data from Randstad (ABSL 2026) confirms that while post-pandemic hiring surges have stabilized, the market has transitioned from general scarcity to a critical ‘skills mismatch.’ In fact, according to Global Talent Trends 2026 by Mercer, “59% of HR leaders say attracting talent with critical digital skills will be the biggest workforce challenge in 2026." Consequently, Forbes reports that talent shortages persist, and millions of highly specialized job openings remain unfilled in Global North countries.

There is still no indication that the tech talent shortage will end. Data show it will only gain further momentum in the coming years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, software developer employment is projected to grow 16% from 2024 to 2034, with about 129,200 openings projected each year over the decade. The situation appears even more dire globally. According to Korn Ferry’s 2018 study ‘Future of Work: The Global Talent Crunch’, the global shortage of skilled workers across finance, technology, and manufacturing could surpass 85 million by 2030. Poland, however, tells a different story: according to ManpowerGroup’s 2025 Talent Shortage Survey, only 59% of Polish employers report difficulty finding skilled talent, one of the lowest rates globally versus a 74% global average, and in IT specifically just 55% versus 76% globally.

However, the solution to this crisis is not expanding headcount, but addressing technological fluency. As Randstad’s 2026 Workmonitor reveals, global organizations face an ‘AI reality gap’. While companies invest heavily in AI, many workforces globally struggle with adoption and morale. Poland offers the solution to this challenge. According to Randstad, 76% of Polish talent feel confident they can use the latest technology (vs. 69% globally), and 64% feel AI improves their productivity (vs. 62% globally). By building engineering teams in Poland, global companies gain a tech-savvy workforce ready to transform AI investments into immediate business results.

In this context, one of the most important factors for tech companies is attracting the best team members with both the required technical expertise and so-called soft skills. To achieve this goal (and usually also save money), such companies often set up engineering teams in other countries, and Poland is one of the best examples. Today, thousands of businesses from around the world (mostly from Europe, North America, and the Middle East) have already opened branches or created remote R&D teams in our country (see examples from various industries in our Success Stories section). Moreover, each month numerous new international technology giants, SMEs, and startups open branches in Poland (the most interesting of which we present in the News section).

How Many IT Professionals Are In Poland?

Several main reasons make Poland one of the best destinations in this case. One of the most important is that Poland has the largest number of IT professionals in Central and Eastern Europe. While defining the exact boundaries of the tech workforce varies depending on the statistical methodology used, ranging from specialized software developers to the broader ICT services sector, every major benchmark confirms Poland’s regional leadership:

• Official ICT Employment (Eurostat): The most recent official 2025 data from Eurostat reports 778,800 „ICT employees” (defined as persons who can develop, operate, and maintain ICT systems and for whom ICTs constitute the main part of their job), across all industries in Poland, representing 5% of total employment nationwide.
• Underestimation & Sector Depth (ABSL 2026): , official ICT figures are widely considered conservative. Given that many IT professionals work directly in non-tech sectors like banking, automotive, or telecom, and the modern business services sector alone employs over 500,500 specialists (ABSL 2026), the actual total is significantly higher.
• Current Talent Pool Estimate (Winged IT): Considering the continuous annual employment growth rate in ICT in recent years (around 10% per year), the number of IT specialists in Poland is now at least 850,000 and continues to grow rapidly.
• Dedicated Software Developers (Dealroom.co & PFR): Focusing specifically on software creation, the landmark report from 2020 by Dealroom.co and the Polish Development Fund report (download full report here), the number of Software Developers in Poland at the end of the second decade of the 21st century was as high as 401,000, almost three times as high as in Romania (which ranked second among the eastern EU countries. Notably, the report does not include Ukraine, a non-EU country that, according to other studies, ranked second in CEE, with about 35% fewer Software Developers than Poland.
• Continued Growth (Emerging Europe 2024): Building on this trajectory, Emerging Europe’s Future of IT 2024 Report highlights that Poland had 539,100 Software Developers in 2024, confirming the sector’s sustained expansion beyond the 2020 baseline, a trend also driven by an influx of talent from Ukraine and Belarus and the relocation of company headquarters, evident since 2020 and accelerated following the war in Ukraine.

This is hardly surprising, as Poland has long been home to many IT specialists. As Infoshare pointed out, in 2017 Poland was already home to almost 25% of all software developers in the CEE region.

Gender Diversity & Talent Retention in IT

Women remain a minority in Poland’s technology sector. Still, the trend is upward, and the country’s specific strengths, talent pipeline, career mobility, and integration into broader business services set it apart from the regional average. According to Bulldogjob’s IT Community Survey 2025, women made up almost 20% of the Polish IT sector, up from 16% and 14% the year before.

Industry research tracks a steady pattern of career progression and technical specialization within that growing base:

• Career Mobility (No Fluff Jobs 2023): Demonstrating strong career advancement, 55% of all women engaged in software development and 40% of female IT specialists secured career promotions within a single reporting year. (The Women in IT 2023 report is available in Polish here).
• Technical Specialization (Women in IT 2024): Women occupy pivotal technical roles across software development, leading teams in Testing/QA (13%), Backend Development (10.3%), UX/UI design (11%), and Frontend Development (9.7%).
• Broad Industry Integration (ABSL 2026): Looking at the broader business services, R&D, and technology ecosystem, research by ABSL shows that women account for 53% of the total workforce across international hubs in Poland.

The gap between the narrow IT-specialist figure and the much higher business-services figure reflects where women in Poland’s tech ecosystem are concentrated today: heavily represented in QA, UX, business services, and R&D support functions, still underrepresented in core software engineering roles. This trend is picking up speed thanks to a growing number of dedicated Polish IT NGOs and initiatives, including Women in Technology, Dare IT, Girls Code Fun, and popular events such as The Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit or Kobiety IT. Moreover, according to The game industry of Poland – report 2025, the percentage of female employees is also very high in the GameDev industry (24.5%), where Poland is one of the global leaders. In 2023, the number of women creating games in our country was among the highest in the world.

Programmer as the most popular profession in Poland

Poland owes its large number of available IT specialists to factors such as the popularity of technical degree programs at many universities. Each major Polish city has a technical university –  there are over 20 of them in total, offering exceptional educational quality. The HackerRank 2024 report highlights that Polish universities are among the best in EMEA. According to the HackerRank 2025 Developer Skills Report, technologies like React dominate global front-end development with a 75% preference rate among developers focused on the skill. Polish universities are also recognized for strong computer science education: the University of Warsaw ranks 1st in Poland and 199th worldwide for computer science in the US News Best Global Universities 2025–2026 ranking.

As global skill reports (such as HackerRank) highlight, generative AI and personalized tutoring tools are now used by up to 70% of developers to accelerate continuous learning. Polish students and specialists are at the forefront of combining high-quality academic foundations with AI-driven upskilling.

According to Statista’s data, Computer science is currently the most popular field of study in Poland. Statistics Poland reports that the total number of students in IT and ICT degree programs has ranged from 50 to 78 thousand in recent years, with about 10,500–13,500 graduates per year. But as the Future of IT Report 2026 mentioned, this number is constantly growing. Students in ICT-related fields are projected to have grown by almost 25 percent between 2020 and 2024.

In the context of the popularity of work in the IT sector in Poland, it is also worth mentioning a fun fact from Remitly’s 2022 survey analyzing every country’s dream job (based on Google search data). Poland was among the few countries where Software Engineer was the most desired position, while in other countries, jobs like Writer, Influencer, or Businessman dominated.

Salaries in Poland as a Software Developer

Many young Poles dream of a career in IT because of the industry’s prestige and its higher, regularly increasing salaries compared to other industries. Consequently, the cost of employing Polish IT specialists is not among the lowest in the world today – according to the Reinvantage Future of IT Report (formerly Emerging Europe) from 2026, the average gross salary in the ICT sector in Poland is currently €3,124 per month (all ICT positions are taken into account). However, it remains much more attractive to employers than in most Global North countries. Historically, early developer salary benchmarks (such as HackerRank) showed that Software Developers’ salaries in Poland were around 63% lower than in the USA, 54% lower than in Australia, 44% lower than in Canada, and 37% lower than in Germany and the UK. Moreover, the same HackerRank survey indicates that Software Developers’ earnings in Poland were lower than in countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, Ukraine, Mexico, and Brazil. While Polish IT compensation has matured to reflect rising global demand, Poland continues to deliver exceptional financial ROI due to significantly lower overall labor overhead and taxes compared to Western software hubs.

Recent 2025–2026 hiring benchmarks (from sources like Motife, Remodevs, and Itelence) confirm that Poland continues to offer compelling cost-efficiency. Employer total cost of engagement for a Senior Software Engineer in Poland averages ~$75,000–$101,000 per year, yielding 49%-52% cost savings compared to the US ($160,000–$200,000). Compared with Western Europe, a 5-person software engineering team in Poland generates annual savings of over €131,000 (-33%) against German baselines and €89,000 (-25%) against UK baselines.

Why Poland is an Ideal Location for Building IT Teams?

When discussing the remuneration of IT specialists in Poland, remember that their salaries are much higher than the national average and that the cost of living is much lower than in many neighboring countries. This makes Poland an attractive place to hire IT professionals. Poland has its own currency (zloty), and most prices are much lower than in Eurozone countries, for example. As a result, among the 40 European states in the Numbeo 2026 study, Poland ranked 32nd for cost of living.

Lower costs, along with the country’s improving quality of life, are bringing many Polish Tech professionals who previously emigrated to Western countries back home today. According to Euronews, after years of steady economic growth, educated and experienced Poles are returning to their homeland in a kind of “reverse brain drain”. This further boosts the popularity of working in technology, so Poland’s position as the largest supplier of excellent IT talent in Central and Eastern Europe is likely to strengthen.

By building your team in Poland, you gain access to the largest pool of IT professionals in CEE, which will grow significantly in the coming years. For IT companies, this translates directly into product manufacturing capabilities and, in turn, revenue. Another key factor is cost, with staff salaries as the main component. When considering the location of your Engineering Team, it is a good idea to think not only about revenues and costs but also about the overall background conditions in the region and country. Working with Tech companies daily, we listed all key factors of importance to international IT businesses – to check them out, go to: Why do IT in Poland?