Both Ukraine and Mexico are among the leading countries when it comes to offshore business services. Being located 11,000 kilometers far from each other, these countries stand out with wide their tech talent pools, strong engineering education, diverse practical experience, and competitive cost to hire software developers. 

But if both Ukraine and Mexico are great options to outsource software development, which one should you choose? Let’s compare these countries in more detail and find your perfect fit. 

Need quick help with sourcing software developers? Talk to our talent sourcers now to find the solution! 

Ukraine vs Mexico – IT markets overview and comparison

When choosing your perfect outsourcing destination, you have to analyze multiple features of local IT markets to make sure there are business opportunities you would like to get. Let’s move step-by-step, comparing the talent pools, development expertise, costs to hire tech talent, business culture features, and investment attractiveness of Ukraine and Mexico.

Which Country Has The Best Developers in 2022

Talent pool

• Ukraine: In 2021, the number of Ukrainian IT specialists was 212,000, according to AIN.UA. In 2022, this number increased to 285,000.
• Mexico: There are 225,000 software developers in Mexico. The country has the second-largest talent pool in Latin America, after Brazil. 

So, from the quantitative point of view, Ukraine’s talent pool is larger than Mexico’s. When it comes to tech talent quality, both locations can offer you top-skilled programmers, and more on this in the next section. 

Development expertise

• Ukraine: According to the Global Skills Report, software developers in Ukraine have cutting-edge skills in cloud computing, computer programming, and database development.
• Mexico: Mexican developers have cutting-edge data analysis skills and are good at machine learning development, mathematics, and statistical programming, according to Global Skills Report 2021. 

Tech Industry in Mexico – Is This Destination Right For Your Project Outsourcing

Both Mexican and Ukrainian software developers have profound development skills, and the areas of their expertise greatly overlap. Mexican developers are also pretty skilled with C# and .NET, while Ukrainian programmers are great at JavaScript and Java programming. From this perspective, defining the winner could be difficult since the tech stack choice is always project-dependent. 

Cost to hire tech talent

Ukraine:

• A junior software developer makes $1200 per month
• A Mid-level software developer’s salary is $3000 per month. Depending on the developer’s skills and experience, it can be $2000 more, reaching $5000 in total. 
• An average wage of a Senior software developer in Ukraine is $5000

Mexico:

• A Junior software developer’s salary is around $900 per month in Mexico
• A salary of a software developer of Mid-level is $2000 per month
• A Senior software engineer’s salary in Mexico is $3000 per month

How Much Does It Cost to Hire Software Developers in Mexico

Overall, the cost to hire software developers in Mexico is significantly lower compared to the cost of hiring them in Ukraine. However, when choosing your perfect destination to outsource software development, don’t be driven by the costs only – there are more factors to keep in mind. 

For example, Western European companies may find it difficult to manage Mexican software development teams and adapt to working in different time zones in general, so a lower cost is unlikely to pay off for this inconvenience. 

Business culture features

• Ukraine: Ukrainian developers always stood out with their European business values and attitudes but recently, the whole world re-discovered them as strong, brave, and hard-working individuals. As stated by CNBC, Ukrainian people are built differently – they will get their job done even despite the life danger. 
• Mexico: The business culture of Mexican software developers is also worth praising. It borrowed a lot from their American neighbors, so Mexican business values are very similar to the American ones. For example, Mexican developers are especially hard-working  – they have only 6 vacation days per year. 

8 Questions to a Mexican Tech Talent Recruiter You’ve Always Wanted to Ask (But Didn’t Dare)

Market growth and investment attractiveness

• Mexico: Mexico is ranked 60 among 190 economies in the “ease of doing business” rating. It is also a politically stable country with a low business climate risk rate. These are just a couple of reasons why  Mexico is ranked 1st among U.S. trade partners. However, keep in mind one important and quite surprising fact  – outsourcing as a service is prohibited in Mexico. It means that you can hire software developers only as your full-time employees, but there is also good news. Tax rates in Mexico are pretty reasonable and using a dedicated tax calculator, you can find out how much taxes you should pay depending on your Mexican employee’s salary. 
• Ukraine: Due to the recent events in Ukraine, outsourcing software development to this country may cause serious doubts. However, despite the war, during the first quarter of 2022, the Ukrainian IT industry generated an unprecedented $2 billion in revenue.  The country’s IT market remains resilient and very attractive – only 4% of Ukrainian developers lost their jobs because of the war, according to a DOU survey. 

How to Hire a Tech Team in Ukraine and Why You Should Do It Despite the War

Ukraine vs Mexico – comparison chart

For your convenience, we’ve gathered the most important decision-making factors in a single chart to visually compare the pros and cons of outsourcing software development to Ukraine vs Mexico. 

Hire the best tech talent internationally

Regardless of the outsourcing destination you would like to choose, Bridge can help you hire top-notch software development teams across three continents, sourcing premium tech talent from the USA, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe. 

Our data-driven sourcing engine enables us to find the best-matched candidates in a global talent pool, using multiple filters and capturing myriads of data points. 80% of our talent sourcing process is automated, so the power of automation allows us to source tech talent five times faster compared to manual search, and 60% cheaper than hiring a recruitment agency with a standard set of sourcing tools. Local talent sourcers with a deep understanding of specific labor markets make automated tech talent sourcing even more efficient. 

Speed, cost-efficiency, and the opportunity to find suitable candidates on the first try are the reasons why most of our customers subscribe to our sourcing-as-a-service, building their development teams step by step, quickly bridging the talent gap, and keeping their pipelines full for future hiring goals. 

Send us a quick note now and unlock untapped talent pools with our sourcing-as-a-service!