FEATURES AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS OF THE UKRAINIAN IT INDUSTRY

The purpose of the article is to highlight the peculiarities and prospects of the development of the Ukrainian IT industry, which have been taking place since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, to highlight the factors that have an impact on the further development of the domestic IT sector. For this purpose, the article examines the specifics of the distribution of IT companies on the market of Ukraine, the peculiarities of the development and transformation of the IT industry, which in turn provides an opportunity to form a modern image of Ukraine. The key segments of domestic IT services (IT support and outsourcing; Custom Application Development; IT consulting and digitalization; R&D outsourcing of business processes) are singled out and it is determined that the IT sector plays a significant role in attracting foreign investments to the country, implementing innovative activities and makes it possible to increase the competitiveness of Ukraine as a whole. In the process of research, we established that before the war, the Ukrainian IT industry was developing dynamically, second only to metallurgy and agro-industrial complex. In particular, the dynamics of the number of active business entities in the field of computer programming, consulting and related activities were investigated; dynamics of total exports and IT exports of Ukraine; the dynamics of the share of IT exports in the total volume of Ukrainian exports; the dynamics of the share of IT exports in the total export of Ukrainian services; the dynamics of the number of employees in companies operating in the field of computer programming, consulting and related activities; as well as the dynamics of the number of specialists of the top 25 IT companies for the period 2010–2021. We have highlighted the features faced by the IT market under today's conditions: lack of a stable, predictable and consistent taxation system; weak legal protection (intellectual property rights and investor rights from improper practices of state authorities; slow improvement of telecommunications infrastructure; low level of adaptation of modern education to modern needs; low level of wages in the industry, compared to the level of wages of foreign IT companies, outflow of intellectual capital; the lack of an orderly mechanism for short-term business trips abroad for men holding key management positions in IT companies in war conditions, a reduction in opportunities for attracting new clients and concluding new contracts, the lack of the possibility of «booking» critical specialists, etc. At the same time, it was determined that representatives The IT market has an active influence on the attraction of investments in the latest developments in the field of cyber security and defense tech, which in the long run can ensure an increase in the planned export indicators of IT companies. It can also be unequivocally stated that the full consequences of the war will be seen in the post-war stabilization period, when the borders will open.