Chapter 01
Over the past 2 decades, The United States and other western European countries have emerged as global leaders in the technology market. However, a majority of the U.S based companies are faced with a critical challenge in the form of a shortage of local developers. Their businesses are also sometimes marred by their inability to compete with tech-giants in terms of lucrative packages for the employees. In a similar vein, western European countries are having a hard time looking for a local talent pool whilst reducing development costs.
This is where the practice of outsourcing software development plays a significant role. Modern technologies have endowed businesses with top-quality project management and communication tools that make it efficient and convenient to outsource development projects. But here's the catch! The average cost of outsourcing software development services is not uniform all over the world – each country extracts a different price.
Before we proceed to discuss the offshore development hourly rates in different parts of the world, let us first glance at the software development hourly rates in The USA and western European countries. These are the countries with the highest demand for offshore development and will help us paint a clearer picture of differences in the cost of offshore development among various regions.
Based on the data available from Indeed.com, a software engineer earns an average hourly base rate of $47.59 in The USA as of 2020. The number may vary depending on the experience of the individual, the technology available as well as the location of work. Some examples of location-based rates are as follows: