Member Article

Half of UK companies have outsourced development work

One of the UK’s leading software development outsourcing firms has revealed that more than half of British companies have outsourced development work to countries including Ukraine and Bulgaria.

UK based firm Clockers commissioned an anonymous survey of more than 3,000 start-ups based in the UK and found that 56% had turned to foreign software engineers for development work such as SaaS program development, one-off API integrations and custom internal CRM systems.

The survey asked start-up founders to list the top three factors in deciding to outsource software development work. Access to skilled teams was the main benefit, according to more than two thirds (67%) of respondents, while 40% of businesses said that they outsource work to save time on recruitment. A further 28% said outsourcing lead to more efficient project management.

Of the businesses that outsourced software development work, 62% said that they most commonly hire teams in Eastern European countries, including Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania.

According to additional external research, Ukraine ranks first globally for the highest number of C++ engineers, and second for JavaScript, Scala and Magento developers. The country also produces more than 36,000 IT graduates per year*.

Clockers, one of the UK’s leading software development outsourcing firms, connects UK-based organisations with experienced software engineers from the best outsourcing teams in Eastern Europe. Clockers, which has offices in both the UK and Ukraine, vets and partners with established, professional outsourcing companies specialising in a variety of tech stacks. Supported by these outsourcing specialists, account managers and translators, it has delivered dozens of successful projects for its clients.

Elliot Thomas, founder of Clockers, commented:

“It’s no surprise that outsourcing is on the rise, and these results show the real growth in this industry. There are so many benefits to outsourcing software development, which is why companies like ours have enjoyed so much success, not to mention the value it brings to the UK economy by enabling companies to grow and recruit much more quickly.

“Hopefully these results will encourage more businesses to consider outsourcing to not only give themselves access to the skilled workers they need, but also provide more opportunity to focus on strengthening other core processes.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chris Owen .