What’s going on with JavaScript salaries Q4 2024?

Volodymyr Bilyk

10 January 2025

The year 2024 has been rough on The Ukrainian Tech Segment overall. The business is down. I’m repeating it like I’m stuck in the loop but what else to say to start things off? This is what sets the tone for the whole thing and you can’t get away from it.

JavaScript is one of the top in-demand technologies in the Ukrainian Tech Segment, it is used everywhere where apps are and so the demand for qualified talent is ever present and thoroughly consistent. In the past, that meant job opportunities were always around the corner and you wouldn’t even need to squint to find one. These days it means you can always be replaced by someone willing to take less money.

This article breaks down what is going on with the Ukrainian JavaScript developer salaries during Q4 2024. Buckle up.

The State of Ukrainian JavaScript Developer Talent Pool

For better or for worse, JavaScript in its numerous variations and domains has always been one of the cornerstones of the Ukrainian Tech Segment. Ever since web apps became commonplace – the demand for JS went up and never really looked back.

As a result, JavaScript (and Java for that matter, but that’s a story for another time) has always been very popular among entry-level talent starting out their journey in tech, and over the years it led to a very even spread of qualification grades among the talent pool.

Even in these dark days our salary surveys still get healthy 25% splits between junior, middle, senior, lead lead-level talent.

The consistent demand was the reason why there were so many JavaScript developers – outsourcing companies, product companies, startups, eCommerce, financial institutions, state institutions – literally, everybody wants some hot JavaScript action to get their Web Apps running smoothly.

Because of that, you can find all sorts of JavaScript developers who are well-versed in many different stacks and capable of handling numerous challenges at once.
But when the business is down, a good pair of hands is not enough to get the invisible hand of the market to sway things in your favor and that’s where we are at.

The business is down across the board. Go figure.

The outsourcing companies struggle due to the demand decrease and unwillingness to work with Ukrainian companies. To make matters worse, European and American markets also struggle due to inflation, cost of living crisis and a litany of smaller economic misfortunes rendering businesses unable to outsource software projects.
Meanwhile, product companies’ woes are twofold.
- On the one hand, the consumer market is down because the cost of living crisis is taking all the money away. When the rent is sky high, homie got no spare dime for your premium gamified mindfulness app. The penny-pinching is real and it hits the product companies right where it hurts.
- On the other hand, enterprise solutions suffer from companies optimizing their spending for the long haul. The economic crisis is crushing everyone and the question is how to mitigate the damage more efficiently. Not spending your budget on all sorts of communication apps, task management suits, content creation apps or Grammarly Business is one of the solutions – these costs pile up high when you have a thing going. And there’s not much you can do about it.
- Things are rough for product companies with quality output, but for companies that develop gimmick products (like Reface), it’s the fat lady sings stage. Hype might get you seen but it ain’t got you going and that’s what counts. So that’s that.
Oddly enough, the Ukrainian startup scene is looking well in comparison. One of the reasons why is that startups have less pressure to perform from the get-go and have more leeway to figure out a better way of doing their thing. As a result, investors are more forgiving about the costs and have some faith it will pay off eventually. Especially, if your startup is developing literal killer drones, but let’s not go there this time.
Fintech and banking companies are the only white niche with consistent talent demand that has the money to spend on talent. These guys like their apps running tight and they will pay to make it so.
The other niche with healthy talent demand is predictable gambling and online gaming because of course they are. Those online casinos won’t run themselves. Pretty much these two niches are currently the main driving forces for salary growth while everyone else goes down.

JavaScript Salary Dynamics Q4 2024

Junior

One of the most interesting things about the Ukrainian JavaScript developer talent pool was how efficient the talent pipeline from junior to lead. Because the demand was always so consistent – the supply more or less followed suit. Cue all sorts of learning courses and more than enough job opportunities for starters.

As a result, the junior-level JavaScript talent pool was one of the most diverse across the entire Ukrainian Tech Segment. There are switchers from elsewhere, switchers from other tech domains, university students, and even high school students.

Because of that, historically, the junior JS salary range has been wide.

Here’s how things have changed during 2024:

The overall trend for Junior JS salaries is that lows are getting lower while the highs got slightly higher. The lower-end decrease year over year is at 16% due to lots of learning courses producing entry-level talent. At the same time, the upper end of the range saw a 19% decrease. The current median revolves around $1000-1100 while last year it was closer to $1300-1400.
The 5% incremental growth in some cases revolves around companies toying with talent development from the very start and having several subgrades for junior talent. So basically, the whole growth thing is for advanced junior+ talent.
- My prediction is that it won’t be a factor during 2025 because the business is down and it is just not sustainable at a meaningful level. But as of mid Q4 2024, companies are still trying it.

Middle

Middle-level salaries have always been an odd thing to study. The main reason why is that the definition of middle talent is very vague. And it gets things all over the place for no particular reason.

Some companies have a Middle JS salary range at what is technically a Junior+ salary range.
Other companies do the opposite and keep Middle JS salaries at competitive highs – more or less at the same level as lower-end seniors.
To make matters even more confusing – there’s this whole Middle+ thing that can be at the upper range of the chart, but it can also be at the third quartile range and there’s no rhyme or reason to trend.

Overall, things are rough all round:

The Middle JS salaries saw a 28% decrease compared to Q2 2024 and a staggering 29% compared to Q4 2023. I guess it will be well into 30-35% and down by the time Q1 2025 rolls around. The past median was around $2700-2900 depending on the niches. These days it is closer to the $2500-2600 range and it would probably go all the way down to $2500 by Q1 2025.
The middle section of the range remains consistent with past years, but the lower end is going down and so does the upper end. How so? Lots of people are losing their jobs and quite a lot of them had higher salaries. Basically, what we got in the chart is the whole upper end starting with the third quartile got cut in half while the rest of the chart more or less remained at the same range. Thus the median shift.
Oddly enough, the middle+ salaries had some incremental growth driven by the startup segment. So if you are a solid pair of hands that can do what they’re told – good news, there’s 9% growth compared to Q4 2023. Given how intense the inflation is – that’s a spare pizza. Yay!

Senior

That’s where things get funny if you like morbid things. So – high profile tech talent is always in demand, right? It still is, except when it is not and now it is not.

The senior JavaScript developer salaries have been going crazy ever since the pandemic started and it was like that up until Q1 2024 when things started to change.

The current media is at $4500-4800 depending on the niche.
At first, it seemed like an odd slowdown – none of the salary reviews showed a significant growth (for instance in 2023, senior JS salary review saw a 20% increase on the average, these days you’re lucky to get 10% and not get fired two quarters later) and then none of the new hires showed any significant changes too.
And then Q2 2024 came about and it was the same thing but more. And there was a trickle of respondents with “currently unemployed” and “in active job search”. These two tags complicate things and “complicated things got|.
Q3 2024 is where things got really rough. By August there were regular reports of talent cuts, salary freezes, salary cuts, company reorganizations, eliminating benches, etc. Pretty much anyone deemed disposable got let go and it turns out that a lot of senior JS are disposable. Even more than middles and juniors. Mostly because you can hire two or three middle JS at the price of one really good senior. That happened.
As a result, there was a staggering 35% salary decrease across the board for senior JS talent compared to Q4 2023. The median literally looks like it travelled forward in time from 2020 and it is just not funny. The decrease will be 40% by mid Q1 2025.
For what it’s worth, the entire Q4 2023 upper end of salary chart, the one that represents consistent high figures, is now in the “sporadic & irregular zone”. Now that’s a gut punch.

Lead

Given how rough things have been for Senior JS one might assume that lead level talent had it even worse but they mostly were left unscathed by the big salary decrease.

Sure, there’s a solid 17% salary decrease from Q2 2024 and 23% from Q4 2023, but compared to Senior JS falling off a cliff – that’s basically cuts and bruises.
Because of that, the current Lead JS median revolves around the $6400 mark, but if we look at different niches it slides from $6200 to $6700.

One of the reasons why the decrease was less drastic is because there was less lead level talent.

For the most part these guys are very mixed-in with the senior crowd but have extra skills that make them valuable in different ways compared to senior developers.
An ability to manage teams and get things done goes a long way and companies tend to recognize that more than simply writing a clean code that doesn’t burst into tears if you look at it funny.
But even with that in mind what previously was average maximum range for lead JS is now in the “irregular highs” sections.

What’s Next?

JavaScript had it rough this year, but it is not all doom and gloom. JavaScript is the heart of web applications.

Sooner or later the market will figure out new ways of making dough with them. And when it happens – salaries will go up, outsourcing demand will soar and products will get their sales running wild.

Coming next – the demand for cybersecurity is at the all-time high and it shows. I wonder if that means DevSecOps is getting a raise this time?