7,411 Ukrainians took GlobalLogic’s IT Switch course, which helps people without specialized education acquire the technical knowledge necessary for a career in IT. According to the survey of course graduates, most plan to start their career as a tester, and JavaScript has become the most popular programming language.

It became known that newcomers to IT most often choose the engineering field: the profession of website developer or tester. But only 17% of switchers are interested in project management and management.

During the survey, respondents could choose several answer options, so the total percentages exceed 100%. Thus, the survey results are as follows:

Manual or automated testing was chosen by 41.3% of switchers, front-end, that is, user interface development, by 35.7%.

The following areas were also popular among respondents: development of technologies for “drivers” of sites, server technologies — back-end (26.8%); development of smart devices (19.7%); creation of applications for iOS and Android mobile systems (17.8%); business analysis (17.4%); project management (16.9%); support, deployment and administration of networks, working environment of the project or developer (11.3%).

GlobalLogic survey: IT switchers choose JavaScript and plan to earn at least $1,000

JavaScript is the most popular programming language among beginners, and the majority of switcher specialists prefer JavaScript, 59.5%.

“JavaScript remains one of the most popular for starting a career in programming,” says Inna Ivashchuk, Senior Software Engineer at GlobalLogic, “First of all, due to its versatility and relative ease of writing programming instructions, because a specialist only needs a browser to run the first line of code.”

At the same time, Python is also very popular among beginners, with over 56.4% choosing it to learn. C/C++ language was chosen by 23.1%, TypeScript — 16.4%, C# — 12.3%, Go — 10.3%, Java — 9.2%.

GlobalLogic survey: IT switchers choose JavaScript and plan to earn at least $1,000

Newcomers were also asked about future plans and desired compensation from employers. 65% of respondents want to work in a team of developers, testers, business analysts, etc. 24.8% of switchers plan to realize themselves in team management in positions such as team lead, project manager or scrum master.

GlobalLogic survey: IT switchers choose JavaScript and plan to earn at least $1,000

The switchers’ expectations for compensation in five years are as follows: the majority, 40.3%, of respondents plan to earn from $2000-4000, and 28.6% expect compensation in the amount of $4000-6000, 14.6% – $6000 and more, 10.7% — $1000-2000.