How Much Can You Save By Hiring Remote Developers?

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Introduction

Have you considered hiring remotely? Or maybe you already hire remotely? In either case, you’d want to optimize your costs while achieving higher productivity.

Everyone knows that developer salaries vary significantly between countries. But how much can you save on salaries by hiring remotely? Can you maintain (or improve) the level of skills in your team by hiring remotely? This article answers those questions.

Up to 60% lower salary costs (and better developers)

In figures 1 and 2, we report numbers from PayScale on salaries and numbers from HackerRank on developer skills. To be precise, the data compares median salaries for mid software developers against average programming skills (across countries).

Developer salaries [USD per year]

Figure 1. Developer salaries [USD per year]

Developer skills [HackerRank scores]

Figure 2. Developer skills [HackerRank scores]

The developer skills and salaries don’t go hand in hand. In countries, like the United States and Norway, the median developer salaries are among the highest in the world. However, there are countries with 60% lower salaries (e.g. Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine) who have much higher average developer skill (as measured by Hacker Rank). For those of you who like statistics, the correlation coefficient of skill and salary is shockingly low at 0.07.

The developer salaries in the developing countries are up to 60% lower. At the same time, the average developer skills are higher in some of the developing countries.

Disclaimer: the numbers above are averages

At RemoteMore, we believe that there are talented people everywhere around the world. We report averages (and medians) so you can have an idea about the remote hiring possibilities. However, remember to treat each case individually: no one is the average of anything else than themselves. Also, the data is not the salaries of remote developers in a country (as far as we know, no one has compiled a reliable dataset on that) but the local salaries.

How does your country compare?

If your country is not on the chart, you can probably find it over here:

Developer salaries and skills: data for 42 countries

The 42 countries are:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Chile
• China
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Egypt
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hong Kong
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Ireland
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Russia
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• Turkey
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Vietnam