Many companies are currently feeling the effects of a lack of talented IT specialists with suitable skills on the labour market and have begun to look for talented help abroad. 

In terms of IT skills, CEE region is considered to have a very attractive concentration of people with an IT education and a good level of language skills. Based on the latest European Digital City Index, cities including Bratislava, Bucharest, Sofia, Ljubljana, Tallinn, Riga and Budapest are rated as focal points for an attractive IT labour force in terms of the quality of their skills. Some call the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) region the Danube Valley due to the concentration of its innovative business environment, something which has been written up in the Financial Times.

The Paylab Portal focused on IT specialists from the Baltics, Balkans and Central Europe in an effort to determine their willingness to work abroad. A total of 4,343 IT specialists working in this region across 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) participated in a Paylab survey at the beginning of 2017. They primarily included software engineers, technical specialists and programmers. Higher earning potential was the most attractive reason to work abroad, given that they were likely to earn at least double in Western Europe than what they were earning in their home country.

IT specialists in the Baltics, Central Europe and the Balkans are open to attractive job opportunities and express a relatively high willingness to travel abroad for work.

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