Our quarterly CIS gamedev job market overviews continue. This article looks at data from September-November 2018.
I.Autumn in gamedev
Our analysis included 4458 vacancies from key job and industry portals for September-October 2018, which is almost 30% fewer job offers than there were in summer of this year.
The breakdown of job offerings by months is almost equal – about 1500 per month. The lowest number of vacancies posted by employers was in October: 1393.
*These are job offers from game studios posted on App2Top, HeadHunter (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), Dou.ua. and DTF, where the largest number of vacancies in the game development industry are listed. Earlier we reviewed jobs on Rabota.ua and Work.ua, and on Belarusian job portals. We won’t provide separate data on them here, as almost all offers are duplicate posts from App2Top, HeadHunter (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), Dou.ua, and DTF.
Who companies were looking for
In autumn, in the CIS labor market as a whole as well as in individual countries, the largest number of vacancies were for developers, at 1489 (33% of the total). Take note of the fact that the total number of offers for them has decreased by 44% since summer.
As before, not all employers specified the specific technology or area of work in the job description. However, the largest demand in autumn was for Unity developers. 30% of employers were searching for Unity programmers in September, and in the following months, demand for them decreased to 23% in October and 15.5% in November. The second most popular was C++. Demand for specialists familiar with this technology remained stable throughout the entire autumn at around 16-17%.
Offers (Autumn 2018)
The second most in-demand area in autumn, just as in previous periods, was art specialists: 865 job offers (19.4% of the total number of vacancies in the market). The percentage of job offers for artists out of the total number has not changed. The most desired area of work was 3D art, and not 2D as had been the case in summer.
Game designers remained in third place by number of job offers, with 498 vacancies for them during autumn. The share of vacancies for them in comparison with other areas increased slightly, from 10% in summer to 11.2% in autumn. Demand for game designers in Russia and Belarus systematically increased in autumn (see Charts by Country).
Employers’ interest in QA also went up slightly. The share of the number of offers in this area shows a minimal, but still positive growth trend of +0.5%. During autumn, QA specialists could choose from 306 open positions.
Where demand for specialists in other areas is concerned, in November it was minimal for almost all the below-listed professions.
In general, during autumn 2018, job offers were distributed as follows:
- analysts could choose from 102 offers (6 vacancies in November)
- marketing and PR specialists had 112 offers (10 in November)
- community and support specialists could choose from 69 offers (11 in November)
- project managers had 104 offers (demand for them has increased; in summer they had only 79 offers)
- producers could choose from 21 available offers (supply was minimal in September)
- business development is on a crash course heading straight for zero: there were only 4 vacancies for them in autumn.
Note that in autumn there were a lot more offers for non-core directions (Other) than there were in summer. This category’s share increased from 3.8% to 13.6%. This includes a variety of positions: from department head assistants and video production or sound specialists, to HR and recruiting specialists.
Incidentally, employers began to specify the required specialist level more often than they did in the summer. This data is present in 24% of all surveyed vacancies, compared to 21% total over the summer months.
Vacancies by Level of Seniority (Autumn 2018)
Offers by country (autumn 2018)
To get a complete picture of the labor market, we offer data on monthly trends and trends by country (key areas).
Job offers in key areas from employers in CIS countries
September 2018
October 2018
November 2018
While there were no significant changes in key areas (programming, art, game design, and QA) for the CIS as a whole, there were some curious changes in the breakdown by country.
Job offers from employers in key areas (by country)
Ukraine (autumn 2018 vacancies)
September 2018
October 2018
November 2018
Russia (autumn 2018 vacancies)
September 2018
October 2018
November 2018
Belarus (autumn 2018 vacancies)
September 2018
October 2018
November 2018
Top 15 most active employers in CIS game development
As in the previous periods, in autumn we also created a ranking of the most active companies by number of published job offers (on key portals).
Top Employers by number of published vacancies (Summer 2018)
By number of job offers, these companies combined had 30% of the total number of positions on the market (in the analyzed period).
The top three have changed. While Playrix, G5, and Social Quantum sought more specialists than any other companies in summer, autumn has been dominated by Wargaming, Game Insight, Social Quantum, and ZIMAD. Note that Playrix and G5 have cut their search activity in half.
Art and game design reached a balance
While spring saw a boom in art specialists and summer was for game designers, in autumn, demand for art and game design was equal, amounting to 30% for each area. Analysts were a little less popular, accounting for 20% of requests from employers.
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