How has Vietnam’s IT human resources developed in recent years?

Vietnam, an emerging economy with an annual GDP growth rate of 7.2 percent (2019) and 2.91 percent (estimated 2020), is an appealing destination for SMEs, Startups and Entrepreneurs to find the potential human resources to develop their businesses, especially in the IT Outsourcing field. In this article, we discuss how Vietnam’s IT human resources developed in recent years and the potential of Vietnam to be a global digital solution hub.

According to the development, Vietnam has about 400.000 IT Engineers and over 50.000 graduated IT Students from over 153 IT Institutions per year.

• Vietnam ranked 1st at the Science and Technology Competition in Thailand in 2020
• Vietnam ranks 29th in terms of Skill Value Worldwide in the Developer Skills Chart Of Skill Value Report in 2018.
• Top 06 worldwide in Developer Skills Charts Of TopCoder Report in 2016.
• Ranked 23rd worldwide in Developer Skills Charts of HackerRank’s Report in 2016.

With growing IT resources and the development of skill sets, Vietnam is strongly considered to be the destination for the IT Outsourcing companies in the world to hire and build their product development services

• Age: At present, the number of developers in Vietnam at a young age accounts for the majority with 53.2% aged 20–29 years old. Young age provides them with a progressive attitude, always willing to learn and change, which is very suitable for the flexibility of the global market.
• Passion: According to the survey, Most candidates (78%) choose to follow the programming industry because of their interest and passion for it. What makes them feel most satisfied is that they can be trained and have the opportunity to develop their skills.
• New opportunities: About ¾ developers are willing to switch their working environment whenever suitable to open their new opportunities and challenge themselves
• Quantity of labour resources: Vietnam has about 400.000 IT Engineers and over 50.000 graduated IT Students from over 153 IT Institutions per year.
• Logical ability compared to the world: According to the Ministry of Education and Training, Việt Nam scores 505 points (ranking 13rd) in the reading test, 496 (ranking 24th) in maths, and 543 (ranking 4th) in science.

“The average performance in Vietnam surpassed even some OECD member countries, including the U.S., the U.K. and France” (e.vnexpress.net in 2018)

Vietnamese students are among the best academic performers in Southeast Asia, and even join their Chinese peers to surpass students from developed countries outside the region, according to a new report.

• Years of experience: The number of senior developers over 5 years of experience accounts for about 30% while those with less than 3 years of experience represents 53.5%.
• Level of qualification: There is a large number of developers with only a few years of experience but having Senior / Lead expertise. In contrast, some have many years of experience but only being reviewed as Junior or Middle-higher positions. 

Source: Vietnam IT Market Report 2020

• Personnels shortage:
• The training program’s focus does not meet businesses’ needs
• Graduates have neither practical skills nor soft skills (teamwork, time management, communication, …)
• IT personnel lack communication skills and fluency in English.
• Technology changes too fast for schools to develop proper training programs

Demand for IT personnel will continue to increase substantially in 2020. Top reasons leading to “hot” growth in IT personnel are: Vietnam has attracted the attention of big technology companies in the world to hire and build their product development team; and the Make In Vietnam wave of innovative startups in the field of technology is getting stronger.

According to the survey, Demand on IT human resources based on Company type show that IT outsourcing companies make up the largest part with 43,8%. Vietnam is on the way to be a promising global digital partner.

The need for IT resources in Vietnam is increasing everyday, despite being highly evaluated, Vietnam IT personnel have not been exploited enough both in terms of quantity and quality. The quality is not only about experience and knowledge but also about soft-skills and language skills.

To meet the need to collaborate with global partners, Vietnam’s IT human resources’s Skills is being significantly improved.

• Practical quality: Until 2020, Vietnam IT human resources has quite good practical quality with 81% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, while this percentage average in the world is less than 75% (according to the survey of Stack Overflow 2020). Besides, the number of engineers who have the international certificate accounts for more than 90%.
• Language Skills: Because of the necessity of working with foreign partners, English is the most commonly used language in development services. Until 2020, the English level of IT engineers in Vietnam has significantly improved, with 64 percent of them having a rather fine to good level.

There are also promising future labour resources for IT professionals when there are structure changes in elementary grades which provide that English and Informatics will be compulsory for students from grade 3 instead of from grade 6 as current.

• Soft skills: Beside practical and language skills, soft skills is also a key to success so In recent years, there has also been a strong emphasis on it. You could find many courses and workshops with the purpose to improve the soft skills for IT engineers such as Management Skills, Leadership, Personal Development,..

To meet labor market demands, international integration, and the aspiration of “powerful Vietnam,” the Ministry of Education and Training has allowed the application of a specific mechanism in information technology training, thereby allowing schools to coordinate deeply and widely with businesses and professional associations during training.

Allowing training institutes to collaborate with enterprises that are also places for students to practice with the actual training time must ensure at least 30% of the total training program.

Use facilities, equipment and software of enterprises to practice in order to improve practical skills and practical application of students; Using experts from enterprises to participate in teaching, guiding practice, internship, assessing student learning results…

Besides, solutions may also be forming the mindset of future IT engineers and improving other skills rather than practical skills. Institutes and enterprises can consider these solutions:

• For institutes:
  • Coordinate with experts from businesses for appropriate skills and knowledge training
  • Update curriculum regularly and give students opportunities to participate in events/workshops
  • Enhance logic-algorithm platform & English training courses
• For businesses:
  • Build on-job training in the company
  • Expand talent pool by giving opportunities to fresh graduates (Freshers) combined with the Nurturing Talents model in a bid to create strong bedrock for sustainable IT personnel development for businesses & Vietnam.

We hope that this article has provided you with the information that you need to know about the development of IT human resources in Vietnam. If you are looking for a global digital partner, a software development company who not only works with a dedicated attitude but also combines technology savvy with business know-how to bring you the best experience, look no further.

Contact us: www.spiritlabs.co