Charles Bridge, Wenceslas Square, Jewish Quarter, - all these attractions make Prague one of the most beautiful towns in the world. Prague has a rich architectural heritage with its breathtaking Gothic, Bohemia, and Renaissance styles. Even though the town’s historical aesthetic can make you think that there’s no place for digitalization, that’s not true. Prague has long been a hometown for wealthy innovative start-ups and you’ll find there offices of all the corporate giants like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and others. In addition, Prague has become an attractive city for the IT sector for two main reasons: qualified IT professionals and proximity to the main IT markets of Krakow and Berlin.
Prague has a combination of social, economic, and geographical conditions, which is very attractive for entrepreneurs and start-ups. Over the years, more and more investors are ready to fund the next project, and according to study research that was made by Arcadis, Prague is ranked the second-best town to live and do business in Central and Southeast Europe. Not only is the corporate tax rate low (19%), the city has a low cost of living as well. For example, in Prague, $2,600 a month would be enough to live on the same level as $5,400 in London (given the fact that you are renting). For companies, this also means they spend less on labor and are able to mitigate risk and scale quickly. In addition, the business climate is pretty appealing not only due to low taxes but cash support, different grants, and tax incentives.
Speaking of IT-sector, it’s safe to say that the personnel reserve is rich in English-speaking professionals and the market employs over 316,000 people. According to multiple studies, Prague became a very attractive market for private equity. Numbers speak volumes as there are more than 7,000 different IT companies in the country and most of them are located in big cities such as Prague or Olomouc. Moreover, the country ranked 24th for its IT innovations and 6th for having the best developers in the world in 2021 and 2020 respectively.
No wonder tech giants have their research centers there as Czech talents are highly skilled and adept in all programming languages that are needed today – from Python and JavaScript to HTML and CSS. There are also elite programmers and best coders, however, the problem is that their talent is underestimated which reflects in monetary rewards. For example, if you are a developer with basic skills, in the Czech you may earn around $2,200 but, in the US, companies would offer $7,500 to a developer with the same skills. In the UK, it is around $6,500 per month.
Even though Prague and the Czech Republic in general is a great place to start or continue your IT journey, about 79% of various companies have trouble filling vacancies with the right employees. As you may understand, one of the main reasons is salary. But there are some other issues that cause the talent shortage. One of them is the low number of IT university graduates, however, there are around 15 different IT schools and universities. Digitalization caused such a fast-growing demand for IT talent and as of now, the market is not coping with this. In addition, many developers prefer to work with other countries or be freelancers, which pays much more than work in some Czech companies. Thus, the Czech Republic is considered to have one of the largest proportion of freelance developers in Europe.
Our company, RGNRK, already knows the Czech IT market very well and we find it attractive to open the doors even for more talent pool there. For many companies, hiring experienced IT professionals can be difficult and expensive but here, in Czechia, we see an opportunity to find a great outsourcing solution for many IT projects. The country houses over 104,500 professional developers and if you can attract at least a few of them, you will definitely succeed.