The IT industry plays a significant role in Bulgaria's economy, actively developing, attracting investments, and creating highly paid IT jobs. Today, we will examine the most in-demand technologies in the Bulgarian IT market, based on an analysis of 267,000 job vacancies posted by 7,600 companies on the Jobs.bg portal over the past 8 years.
Programming Language Trends
JavaScript and Java continue to dominate the market by a significant margin compared to other languages. At their peak in 2022, they were mentioned in approximately 1,000 and 800 job vacancies monthly, respectively. This is not surprising, as JavaScript is the foundation of front-end development, while Java is a popular choice for enterprise applications and backend development.
Recently, there has been a rapid increase in demand for Python — from less than 100 vacancies per month in 2018 to 400+ at the peak in 2022. The language's popularity can be easily explained by its wide usage in web development, data analysis, and machine learning. Python's simple syntax and extensive library make it attractive for both beginners and experienced developers.
C#, C/C++, and PHP show stability, remaining in the range of 250–400 job vacancies monthly. This is understandable considering their maturity and extensive codebase within enterprises. Many corporate applications are written in these languages; hence, the demand for corresponding specialists will remain stable.
The dynamics of HTML/CSS overall mirror JavaScript trends — these technologies are often used together in interface development. Page markup and style writing are integral parts of front-end development, making basic knowledge of HTML/CSS mandatory for any web developer.
Frameworks and Libraries
React unequivocally leads among front-end development frameworks, garnering over 400 mentions per month. Its main competitors — Angular and Vue.js — consistently appear in 100–200 job vacancies. These tools enable the creation of interactive user interfaces and single-page applications (SAST). Their popularity is linked to the increasing complexity of front-end development and the need to efficiently manage application states.
In server-side development, companies prefer time-tested .NET and Spring for enterprise applications. .NET, Microsoft's framework, is used for developing applications in C#. Spring, a powerful Java framework, simplifies application development through dependency injection and abstraction of complex processes.
Laravel is gaining popularity in the PHP world, surpassing the once-dominant jQuery. It is an elegant and expressive framework following the MVC pattern and offering many useful features out of the box. Meanwhile, jQuery is losing ground due to growing competition from modern frameworks, although it is still widely used in legacy projects.
Databases
Relational SQL databases — MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MS SQL — continue to dominate, owing to their reliability and suitability for most tasks. They offer proven mechanisms for data consistency, transactional, and query language. Most applications deal with clearly structured data, for which SQL is ideal.
However, there is growing interest in NoSQL solutions like MongoDB and Elasticsearch, which are better suited for processing large volumes of unstructured data. They provide flexible data schemas, horizontal scaling, and high performance for specific usage scenarios. For instance, MongoDB is often applied with Node.js and the MERN stack, while Elasticsearch is used for full-text search and logging.
The choice of a database depends on the specific project and its requirements. Many companies adopt a mixed approach, combining SQL and NoSQL solutions for different tasks. Therefore, it is beneficial for developers to have basic knowledge of both types of databases.
Corporate Technologies
Companies continue to invest in ERP and CRM systems to optimize business processes and customer interactions:
1. ERP systems cover all key enterprise processes (production, procurement, sales, and finance) and help efficiently manage resources.
2. CRM systems, on the other hand, focus on customer relationship management, sales data collection, and increasing loyalty.
Implementing SAP is a complex process, requiring in-depth domain knowledge and skills in handling big data. Therefore, SAP consultants are highly sought-after in the market and are well compensated.
There is also a noticeable demand for business intelligence (BI) and data visualization solutions, from SAP confidently leads in this segment, offering a range of solutions for business digitization. Tableau to PowerBI. They facilitate data-driven decision-making at all levels of the organization. BI systems aggregate data from various sources, allow exploration, and enable the creation of interactive dashboards. This is a valuable tool for managers, analysts, and data specialists.
Conclusion
Summarizing the main technological trends in the Bulgarian IT market for 2023–2024, we can highlight:
-The growing popularity of Python and JavaScript in development.
-Transition to modern frameworks and libraries (React, Angular, Vue.js).
-Adoption of NoSQL databases alongside traditional SQL.
-Business digitization using ERP, CRM, and BI systems.
These trends reflect companies' efforts to enhance development efficiency, scalability, flexibility in data handling, and process automation. Adhering to these trends enables companies to remain competitive in a rapidly changing technological environment.
In the coming years, IT specialists in Bulgaria should focus on mastering in-demand languages (JavaScript, Python) and frameworks (React, Angular), understanding the architecture of cloud applications and microservices, practicing DevOps approaches, and exploring the intricacies of IT-related domains (such as data science and machine learning).
Equally important are non-technical skills — teamwork, communication with clients, and adaptability to change. The most successful IT professionals of the future are those who combine deep technical knowledge with developed soft skills.
The IT market in Bulgaria will continue to evolve actively, creating new opportunities for professional growth and the realization of bold ideas. The key is to keep learning, experimenting, and not being afraid to step out of one's comfort zone. After all, the ability to quickly adapt to new things is the main competitive advantage in our era.
