Who earns more money: top 10 the most highly-paid professions in Ukraine

Author

Khrystyna Morkovnyk

Steve Jobs was paid $5 per hour in his first job. As Apple's CEO, he officially earned even less—$1 per year. But at the same time he could afford almost everything, because he had accumulated a lot of capital over the past years. Ukrainians can hardly boast of the same: now the average salary in the country is about 12,300 UAH per month (or slightly less than $450).

has found out where in Ukraine it is paid more and what maximum salary applicants can expect to accumulate their own capital. We have compiled our own top 10 the most highly-paid professions in Ukraine.

Let's start with some statistics. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the median salary in January 2021 was 15% higher than last year. Quarantine has made its own adjustments to the Ukrainian labor market. By the beginning of March, almost 490,000 unemployed were officially registered in Ukraine. This is 30% higher than last year's statistics.

According to job search service the grc.ua (formerly HeadHunter), the top 5 in terms of wages in Ukraine are headed by IT and telecom. The average salary in this industry is about 59,000 UAH. The second place was taken by top management with an average salary of 47,500 UAH, regardless of the field of activity. Then—sports and fitness (40,700 UAH), banking sector (30,900 UAH), and construction (30,300 UAH).

As the Executive Director at grc.ua Kateryna Okunskaya has explained to , there are also positions in these sectors with a higher or lower level of compensation. That is, the salary size in each sector depends on the number of offered vacancies: the more there are, the more intense the competition of employers for professional workers becomes. Therefore, in sectors with high competition, salaries are much higher. Other factors include the candidate's skills, knowledge of foreign languages, completion of professional courses, the diplomas (such as an MBA), work experience, etc.

For example, a career in IT usually starts with support. In this case, an employee on average can count on a salary of 14,300 UAH. Whereas the median salary for a developer is 67,400 UAH.

The Kyiv City Employment Center notes that there is a certain imbalance between search engines and vacancies. Usually those who are looking for a job have a higher education, while most of the vacancies are for blue-collar jobs.

Vacancies in the capital are dominated by administrative services, public administration and defense, social insurance, transport, warehousing, postal and courier services, and education. Fewer vacancies are in the sector of information and telecommunications. The greatest demand in Kyiv arises in the sector of information and telecommunications—25 applicants each, as well as financial and insurance activities—12 people per vacancy.

In IT, the most popular are those specialists who know how to code in Java, Python, and C ++. However, they receive appropriate remuneration for their work. According to rabota.ua, Senior C ++ developer has the highest median salary in 2021 among all spheres of activity in Ukraine—112,000 UAH. The Senior Python developer gets a little less—100,000 UAH, the Senior Front-End developer—95,000 UAH, and the Senior HTML developer—94,000 UAH. The list is completed by Senior Java Developer: on average, they receive 90,000 UAH.

Top 10 the most highly-paid professions in Ukraine:

IT developer. On average, they receive from 45,000 UAH.
Dentist. The average salary in Ukraine, according to various estimates, is 20,000-23,000 UAH. Some private clinics offer 50,000-80,000 UAH.
Aviation officer. The median salary for a pilot is 35,000 UAH, for a flight attendant—50,000 UAH.
Media Buyer. This is a specialist who places and promotes advertising products on various information platforms. The median for a media buyer in Ukraine is 30,000-40,000 UAH, and in Kyiv their salary can reach 49,000 UAH and above.
Commercial Director (Chief Commercial Officer). They are responsible for the commercial policy of the company, manage the sales department, develop a strategy and plans for the products sale, and monitor their implementation. The salary is 30,000 and more.
National manager. Their responsibilities include developing and implementing sales development strategies. The average salary in Ukraine is 30,000 UAH.
Chief Financial Officer. They are responsible for business financial flow management, financial planning and reporting. Depending on the company, the Chief Financial Officer's salary can significantly exceed the median of 29,000 UAH.
Stock broker. They are also called the securities brokers. This is a professional intermediary in the conclusion of transactions in the stock market. They buy securities and sell at the request of a client — investor. The median salary for such a specialist is 30,000 UAH.
Trader. This is a participant of stock trading who buys blocks of shares, currencies and other assets at one price and resells them at a higher price. On average, a trader earns about 30,000 UAH.
Builder. The average salary in Ukraine is 20,000 UAH. But large projects can bring a builder much more—from 50,000 UAH.

According to work.ua statistics, the highest median wages are in Kyiv—about 16,000 UAH. Odesa (the average salary here is 14,000 UAH), Dnipro (13,500 UAH), Kharkiv (13,000 UAH), and Lviv (12,500 UAH) are catching up with the capital.