Salaries in defense technology hit $2,500, study finds

DefTech maintains a stable salary level

The field of Defense Technology (DefTech), which covers the development of software, engineering solutions and technologies for the defense sector, continues to be one of the most dynamic areas of the Ukrainian labor market. DOU polled 542 DefTech professionals, including 127 software developers, as well as over 12,000 IT professionals for benchmarking.

According to the results of the study, the median salary in the industry is $2500 and has not changed over the past six months. At the same time, salaries of programmers increased by $350, having reached $3200. Even so, the overall median in DefTech is still about $200 lower, than in the classic IT sector, where it constitutes $2700.

Who earns the most in defense technology

The highest incomes in the field have specialists in development engineering and maintenance of infrastructure (DevOps), where the median salary reaches $5000. Next come hardware engineers (Hardware Engineers) with an indicator $4000 and salaried product managers $3700.

Among technical specialties, design engineers earn on average $2550, while unmanned aerial vehicle engineers are close $1500. The lowest median salaries were recorded in the fields of HR and recruiting, where they constitute $1509.

Comparison of income with classical IT

The difference between salaries in DefTech and traditional IT depends on specialization and level of experience. Higher incomes in the defense sector are demonstrated by specialists DevOps, Data Science / AI / ML, Product Management and QA, where the demand for expertise remains very high.

At the same time, for experienced specialists of the levels Senior and Lead+ classic IT still offers higher salaries. Yes, the median for Lead+ in IT is $5200 against $4500 in DefTech, and for Senior — $4500 against $4100. Instead, level specialists Middle already receive the same median salary — $2500, whereas Junior and Intern earn more precisely in the defense sector — $1150 against $900 in IT.

Popular programming languages ​​and payment level

DefTech remains the most popular programming language among developers C++ — it is used 24% specialists. However, the average salary of such specialists is lower than in traditional IT — $3000 against $3700.

At the same time, developers who work with Python, have one of the highest median salaries — $4500, which significantly exceeds the similar indicator in IT ($3500). TypeScript use approx 13% developers, and their average income is $3450.

Demand for DefTech continues to grow

According to DOU, the defense technology sector remains one of the drivers of the Ukrainian IT market. In the first half of 2026, the number of vacancies in Ukrainian IT increased by 7%, with DefTech and engineering majors accounting for an increasingly large share of new offerings.

Despite the general outflow of personnel from the Ukrainian IT industry, defense technologies continue to actively attract specialists thanks to stable demand, competitive salaries and the growing number of projects related to the country's security and defense capabilities.