Software Development salaries in the EU and important tips for IT companies to attract talents in 2024

Europe is an important pion for the tech industry and recognized at global level for the software development potential of highly skilled people and their high capacity to assimilate data and methodologies to solve complex situations and build algorithms. The software development salaries differ from country to country and dependent by the the job’s location but in Central and Eastern Europe seems to be in a significantly inferior average in comparison with highest non-EU paying countries for software engineers like USA, Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Denmark, UK, New Zealand and the rest. Developed countries, with a greater openness to this field and with a greater human resource in this area, will have considerably higher salaries. We will analyze the situations to see the rate of salaries between EU countries.

There is for sure a lot of diversity and a real difference because every country works differently in IT trying hard to keep the winning battle to attract technical talents, divides salaries differently and apply strategies in different ways. Let’s see!

We’ve compiled a list of average salaries for different software engineering positions in Europe and we will see how they are divided and if there are huge differences or not. From the studies which we have analyzed, the market for software developers and engineers has move upwards at an incredible pace.

Day by day, we see a real battle for tech talent and all the countries are ready to offer large sums in this race to win all-star engineers. This comes because digital disruption has embraced all industries. We can’t do something without digital nowadays.

To be clear, we need to take account of the positions too. So, a software developer salary can vary depending on seniority level and years of experience. If we make a short and concise analysis, we will see that an entry level software developer salary in Switzerland is $87,668 and in Germany is $62,668.   

Because we talk about Europe, there are plenty of countries where software development salaries are exploding. For 2021, the average salaries in this area looks like this: according to PayScale salary comparison, the highest paid software engineer country in Europe is Switzerland – $95,394, Norway – $64,202, and Denmark – $72,151 per year. At the same time, the average software engineer salary per month in these countries is $7,949 for Switzerland, $5,350 for Norway and $6,012 for Denmark. There are more countries where the average software development salaries look good too: Germany, Netherlands ($54K), Sweden, France and Finland (from $46K to $54K per year). In the UK, the average software engineer salary is $42K.

Another interesting thing about salaries in Europe for software developers is that Switzerland is the country that pays the highest entry level software engineer salary – $87,668, while senior software developers earn $126,849, according to PayScale. At the same time, Denmark features the smallest difference between entry-level and senior software engineer salary – only $20K.

As we say, the average of salaries in this field varies widely across Europe. When in Switzerland, the highest major city, salaries are so high, in Athens, the lowest major city, the same position as a developer only expects to receive 26K EUR.

In general, software engineers and developers located in cities across the UK, Switzerland and Scandinavia are paid the highest salary. Italy, Hungary and Greece have the lowest paid software development jobs.

So, if we pay attention to this analysis, we will see that Switzerland won the top of well-paid salaries in software development. Great Britain, Germany, Denmark and Norway come after it with the best salaries too. There’s a huge difference between countries in Europe, so the attraction for the best tech talents it’s harder, we think.

We saw in the beginning of this article that digital and technology industries have their unique place right now in basically everything. We can’t do a lot of things without these 2. So, according to the Harvard Business Review it is no longer just tech companies competing against one another for candidates; other industries have jumped into the fray and are winning a larger share of tech talent. We see a high rate of hiring tech talents by non-tech companies. In 2019, before covid-19 pandemic, more than 40% of software developers were hired by this kind of companies. The same Harvard Business Review has discovered that “the key to overcoming the talent crunch is to widen their funnel of candidates by seeking those with a broader set of desired capabilities — not only technical skills — from a much more diverse pool.”

Providing a package of competitive salary and benefits is a good start, but most of today’s tech professionals are looking for something more. So, what’s the key factor to attract top tech talents in the end? There are actually three factors that are emerging as strong influences on where the most talented candidates want to work:

·       Commitment to objective employees evaluations and supporting career growth

·       Transparent and accountable senior management

·       Culture of coaching and development

At the same time, other tips for attracting the top tech talents are to be focused on the company reputation, use employee connections, be aware of remote work, give possibilities to learn and personal development, invest in the right hiring tools. According to Forbes, companies need to consider a few things: once you find the right candidate, sell them on the meaningfulness of the job they will be starting; different pitch for every recruit; explain how you’ll meet their needs; highlight career growth opportunities; spread passion about what you do; emphasize culture and cause; focus on growth. These are just the important insights that can help a company attract top tech talents. 

An agile recruitment approach dedicated to attract IT talents like accentonpeople.com can do a great job of attracting the technical talents you need, while you’re focused on your business operations, by selecting candidates from specific Central and Eastern Europe countries to gain a competitive advantage from the workforce perspective and get affordable salary rates + higher retention rates. 

The following graphic mentioning the number of software development people by countries is doubled in 2023: