Codecool and Brainspotting study: Romania lacks over 15,400 IT specialists annually

Newsroom Business, Digital & Media, ITC

In Romania, the top 5 polytechnic universities, 59 public universities and 174 private universities of student training in the main technical specializations offer only 9,500 graduates per year, almost 1/3 of them in Bucharest. As the employers aim for a double-digit growth in the number of employees per year, the talent gap has crossed the threshold of 15,400 professionals per year.

In Romania, the need for IT specialists could reach in one year an alarming proportion of up to 24% of the workforce in the next 3 years. To continue its study initiative, Codecool, the IT educational start-up from Budapest, entered in February 2019 on the Romanian market, began its programming courses in its new campus in Bucharest – the courses are open to all those who are interested in programming or for those who want a professional reconversion.

Romania is one of the countries with biggest number of per capita engineers, surpassing US, India, China or Russia. However, statistics show that there is a gap of over 15,400 IT professionals, annually. To find a solution, Codecool – through Brainspotting – discussed with over 45 companies – leaders in the IT field and conducted a study identifying the main barriers and challenges for the IT companies when it comes to recruitment, but also the opportunities that can be foreseen.

Through the study we are launching today, we want to support the development of the IT market in Romania and we believe that the need of collaboration between the public, private and educational decision makers is now more stringent than ever. We have a talent gap of over 15,400 IT professionals per year at a national level. We should double the number of graduates in technology to cover this need. We believe in the potential of the IT market here, which is why we have chosen Bucharest as the destination of the next Codecool school. We aim a number of 300 students in the first year of launch and we want our program to help in closing the gap of IT specialists in Romania

Claudia Tamași,

Country Manager Codecool Romania

What are the main barriers encountered by companies to scale their business?

  • 63% of companies see a barrier in the talent quality as a level of experience and the ability to deliver complex projects;
  • 45% of companies see a barrier in the wage expectations;
  • 33% of companies see a barrier in the quality of the workforce’s soft skills and the time spent on the occupation of the roles dedicated to the specialists.

We are glad to have been chosen by Codecool to accomplish this study. The results show us that the satisfaction level of the companies for the speed of business scaling is neutral – 3,2 of 5. So far, Romania has grown mostly as an outsourcing market and to make the leap to value-added products we must upskill our talents. The market begins to focus on quality and not quantity. Companies also face the increase of the wage expectations in the context of some skills that are not at the level of business requirements

Ana Giurcă,

Managing Partner Brainspotting.

The study shows that there are several measures that need to be implemented so that Romania can become one of the most powerful IT hubs in Europe: increasing the number of graduates or the pool of technology specialists, increasing the number of graduates, professional reconversion, retention and repatriation of talent – through roles with significance and responsibility on projects, increasing the quality of skills, adaptation of the university curricula, investment for upskilling at the level of each organization, the industry should assume a social component – the companies benefited and benefit from talent, mostly off-the-shelf, maintenance of tax exemption.

The study made by Codecool with the support of Brainspotting sought to find solutions to the problem of lack of skilled IT workforce in Romania.

Codecool maintains an active dialogue with companies, so the information taught on the course is continuously refreshed and adapted to the market’s needs. Through the study method – Mastery Based Learning – the students, guided by well-trained mentors, advance at their own pace through the programming languages such as: Python, .NET, Java and JavaScript, GIT, working with different databases through the Agile method for the software development, such as SCRUM.

In addition to digital skills training, the IT educational start-up puts a strong emphasis on the development of the soft skills such as conflict resolution, business thinking and creating a feedback culture, all crucial factors in the current working environment. Those who want an IT career or a professional reconversion can enroll on www.codecool.com/ro. The payment for the courses will be made only after the students undertake their first job as junior full-stack developers.

The main mission of Codecool programming school, established by the private equity funds in Hungary, is to reinvent the IT education process and to complete the current and future lack of professionals through its unique practice-oriented program. The company, which intended to record revenues of 5.1 million euros in 2019, offers intensive programming courses during 12 plus 6 months in Bucharest, Budapest, Miskolc, Krakow and Warsaw and has a medium-term purpose of establishing its presence in 10 big European cities.  The training program, which is implemented with the mentors help who have software development experience, provides up-to-date and ready-to-use knowledge, with the job guarantee after graduation. In addition, the graduates can post-finance their tuition fee from the salaries of their new job acquired with the help of the qualification.