THE IT SECTOR CONTINUES TO LEAD IN WAGE GROWTH IN BULGARIA

Tack TMI Bulgaria’s 2023 Compensation and Benefits Survey of the Bulgarian market covers over 115,000 employees and over 1,000 positions. Again this year the leader is the IT sector. Serious competition for highly skilled professionals leads to steady salary growth.

The survey gathers information from 350 companies from various sectors of the economy, with a particularly strong representation from the high-tech, outsourcing, manufacturing, hotels, banks and financial institutions sectors. Participants include some of the largest and most influential employers both domestically (25%) and internationally (75%).

The demographic situation, the lack of skilled labour and the need for specialised professionals emerge as key factors for the future growth of wages in Bulgaria in the long term, analysts point out.Wages in the country continue to grow, albeit at a more moderate pace compared to previous years, with many other factors influencing wages. 

While Bulgaria is not among the countries whose companies are implementing the most interesting practices – such as providing free home delivery of food products, pet walking for employees on sick leave and the like – the trend of increasing wages and expanding the benefits package remains relevant, the survey reports.

Companies across all sectors are becoming more inventive in expanding the benefits package for their employees, it said. Some of the benefits that employees can receive at employers across the country in the past two years include taking care of employees’ mental health, providing funds to purchase home office equipment or covering the cost of the internet.

63% of employees in the tech sector want to work hybrid, and 27% say they prefer fully remote positions. The platform’s statistics report that post-pandemic, remote working remains the preferred mode of work, with only 8% of IT professionals wanting to return to offices. The trend is even increasing and telecommuting positions have been actively sought in recent months.

Since the beginning of the month, the most in-demand remote positions are for software developers, with Backend Development being the most preferred segment by candidates. According to the platform, it leads convincingly with nearly 40% of all remote job searches.

Python is the language preferred by professionals to program in with 32% of all searches. While the more mainstream ones like Java, .NET and PHP, for which more specialists are sought and hence more number of remote job listings are available, lag behind.