Poland is also the world’s second-biggest outsourcing hub for IT services, having attracted billion-dollar investments from global tech giants such as Microsoft and Google in recent years, Polish state news agency PAP has reported.
Poland is the third most competitive IT market in Central and Eastern Europe after Estonia and Lithuania, according to a new study by the consultancy Emerging Europe.
In the same study, Poland came first among the 23 countries of the region in terms of the education level and professional qualifications of IT workers, according to PAP.
The IT sector is steadily growing in importance in the region, the Emerging Europe study found.
Poland is 'a regional leader' in IT
According to the London-based consultancy, the notable performance of Poland’s IT industry and education system make the country “a regional leader” in IT.
Moreover, thanks to “a thriving start-up ecosystem,” growing availability of venture-capital financing and government programmes, Poland has become “one of the leading hubs for start-up companies,” Emerging Europe said.
Over 3,000 start-ups are already active in Poland, and the country is also home to more than 100 start-up incubators and accelerators.
Booming IT sector
The Polish IT sector has enjoyed continuous growth, with its workforce now totalling 525,000 Polish employees with an average pay equal to 174 percent of the country’s overall average salary, according to Emerging Europe.
Moreover, Polish IT employees are well educated and qualified, with the number of IT students having grown from 50,000 in 2019 to 68,000 in 2021, and the number of IT graduates also growing, the study found.
Polish students also score high in the global PISA education ranking and possess good command of English, Emerging Europe said.
Poland is the world’s second-biggest outsourcing hub for IT services
Poland is also the world’s second most attractive market, behind India, when it comes to the sourcing of IT services, according to the global business-services company GBS World.
In 2022, Poland was the world’s preferred destination for the outsourcing of technical support, and was also one of the most attractive markets when it came to the sourcing of general IT services, data analysis and software development, according to GBS World.
Microsoft, Google invest billions in Polish IT industry
In April, America’s technology giant Microsoft launched its newest "trusted cloud region," the first in Central and Eastern Europe, in Poland, comprising “three independent physical locations around Warsaw, each consisting of one or more data centres.”
Microsoft’s Poland-based cloud centre, called Azure Poland Central, is worth USD 1 billion (EUR 906 million), said the US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki praised the project, saying that “for the first time ever, Poland has an opportunity to be part of the global digital transformation and benefit greatly from it.”
Meanwhile, tech powerhouse Google opened a cloud-computing centre, Google Cloud, in Poland in 2021, the first such facility in Central and Eastern Europe, according to PAP.
In March last year, Google announced a PLN 2.7 billion (EUR 590 million) plan to develop an office complex for 2,500 employees in the Polish capital, called Warsaw Hub.
Google already has a workforce of over 1,000 in Poland, including 600 software engineers, and the Warsaw centre is Google’s biggest cloud-computing hub in Europe, the company said at the time.
Poland’s ‘reverse brain drain’
Poland was once known for the number of people who left the country for work, but now educated people are coming to Poland to take up jobs in its booming tech sector, in a kind of “reverse brain drain,” the Euronews outlet reported.
Euronews said that "Warsaw, in particular, has become a hub of economic activity in recent years, with multinational companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia attracted by the educated workforce, and relatively low cost of living and labour costs.”
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, polskieradio24.pl, Euronews