The IT industry in 2024 reached the maximum of the business climate in 10 years
In 2024, the value of the business climate index in IT due to the state support of the sector reached an absolute record since 2015 – 101.7%, states annual monitoring, prepared by the Center for the Conjunctural Studies of the Institute of Statistical Research and Knowledge of Knowledge of the Higher School of Economics. The main problem of the sector that impedes the ambitious plans for launching new projects to develop domestic software, which, including import substitution, was a deficiency of highly qualified personnel, which reached a critical level in 2024.
The value of the business climate index in the IT industry (the assessment of current economic conditions and the prospects for the development of the sector) in 2024 reached 101.7%-this is a maximum not only from 2022 (100.1%), but also for the entire ten-year observation period (in 2015-98.8%). Such data is contained in the monitoring of the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge (Isiez) of the Higher School of Economics. About 700 companies from 30 regions participated in an expert survey.
Improving the assessments of the state of the industry was facilitated by state support (a decrease in income tax from 3% to 0%, a reduced rate of insurance premiums, preferential lending, etc.).
More than a third of IT companies (35%) in 2024 called such assistance highly effective, although in 2022 only 19% of respondents thought so-dynamics is comparable with the growth of organizations that took advantage of the state support: from 21% in 2022 to 34% in 2024. For the first time in three years in 2024, the share of IT companies that launched new projects for the development of domestic software exceeded a mark of 50%, amounting to 53%.
Companies are gradually adapting to sanctions: more than half of the respondents (56%) did not notice the influence of increasing in 2024 compared to 2023 coverage of restrictions on the dynamics of business activity of enterprises. Almost a third of the companies (32%) are of the opposite opinion.
The deficiency of highly qualified developers limited the development of IT companies-this factor called 61% of respondents the main barrier in 2024 (in second place-a lack of finance, 45%).
The acuteness of the problem was outlined in the 2020 pandemine, but reached a peak in 2024 amid the departure of developers abroad and a lack of scientifically oriented IT specialists (with knowledge necessary for integration in new advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence). In 2024, both factors were equivalent: 30% of respondents were indicated at them, while the role of the first was reduced (in 2023 34% of respondents indicated the problem), and the second is intensified (20% of respondents in 2023). The value of the personnel vulnerability index (shows the scale and focus of the response of industries to a complex of personnel problems) increased in 2024 to 16.3 points from 1.4 points in 2021 (in 2022 – 3.6 points, in 2023 – 14.1 points).
In the coming years, one can expect, on the one hand, a deterioration in the situation with the IT frames, on the other, progress in the field of partial or complete replacement of AI instruments, believes the head of the SKB Contour development department, Alexei Kirpichnikov, and the first trend will be stronger for two or three years. The lack of qualified specialists is noticeable at once for several reasons, including an increased workload due to an increase in the number of projects and the client base, as well as a waste of resources for import substitution. The personnel crisis actively pushes the companies on the use of AI tools, Anna Prabarschuk, head of the Gazinformservice Human Resources Management Service, notes, but they can only partly level the influence of the lack of specialists.
