The Russoft Association corrected the data on the number of IT specialists who left Russia in February–March 2022. According to Russoft, 18–20 thousand specialists have already left the country. According to last week’s estimates, 7–8 thousand people have left Russia. Experts of the association noted that the data on freelancers was taken into account in the updated estimates.

Our estimates are based on the information on the departure of employees of Russoft’s member companies. We also referred to a survey conducted by Proglib, which is based on data from 700 programmers and also includes data on freelancers who were not included in the survey of Russoft’s member companies. The survey mentioned the figure of 6% of all people in the software development industry, which is 200 thousand people, according to Russoft.

Russoft’s spokesperson

According to the president of the association Valentin Makarov, from a third to a half of IT specialists will return to Russia within 8–10 months. He says that most of the specialists who go abroad are employees of development centers of foreign companies which decided to close their offices in Russia, specialists of the companies that were export-oriented, and freelancers.