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Do you need to hire iOS developers, sometimes called iPhone app developers, or an iOS development team to help you build your next great Apple application?
You have come to the right place as in this article I will cover how to hire iOS developers in 2024. I will also cover how much it costs to hire iOS developers, how much it costs to build an iOS app, and the top 5 companies to hire iOS developers from in 2024.
Let’s jump straight in.
Apple App Store and Google Play are the world’s largest app stores, allowing users to download apps for all their smart devices. According to Statista, there are over 1.5 million iOS apps available on the Apple app store. While Google Play leads the field with over 5 million apps, data shows that Apple users spend far more on in-app purchases when compared to Android users.
Statista states that “In the third quarter of 2022, gross app revenue in the Apple App Store amounted to around 21.2 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, a decrease compared to the previous quarter. The Google Play Store generated 10.4 billion U.S. dollars in consumer spending on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps”.
Despite having 3 times fewer users, Apple app store purchases were 2 times greater than Google, meaning that in 2022, Apple users spent around 5 to 6 times as much as their Android counterparts. This is why creating a dedicated iOS app can be so lucrative.
However, in order to do this, you will need to hire iOS developers. Before I show you how to do this, let’s start with the latest iOS trends and costings.
In this article
- How Much Does it Cost to Hire an iOS Developer?
- How Much Does it Cost to Develop an iOS App in 2024?
- What Kind of iOS Developers Do You Need Objective-C or Swift?
- 6 Steps to Hire an iOS Developer
- Top 5 Companies to Hire iOS Developers From in 2024
Latest iOS App Development Trends
Apple announces new App Store and iOS data analytics now available
Apple has just released a new version of its analytics tool that includes 100s of new metrics that users can use to analyze their apps’ performance in the App Store. Using App Store Connect API, users can now gain valuable new insights that will allow them to more effectively develop their apps to increase user engagement and satisfaction.
Examples of Apple App Metrics include:
- App Store Engagement
- App Usage
- Apple Push Notifications
- App Store Commerce
- Frameworks Usage
- File Provider
- Performance
These new metrics will benefit both iOS developers and companies developing iOS apps. iOS developers will be able to improve the performance of the iOS applications that they build while the product owners will be able to better understand and engage with their iOS users.
How Much Does it Cost to Hire an iOS Developer?
There are a few factors that determine how much it costs to hire an iOS developer. The main factor is skill level and experience. Other factors include their location, full-time vs. hourly, and remote vs. in-house.
I will cover the main factors that affect hiring an iOS developer before giving an average hourly rate for iOS developers in 4 key regions, (USA, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and India).
Note: I will concentrate on the price of hiring mid-level and senior iOS developers. Unless you are building a software development team then you won’t be hiring junior iOS developers.
Factors that affect the cost of hiring an iOS developer:
iOS Developer Skill Level
There is a big difference in cost between hiring a mid-level iOS developer and a senior one. The reason for this is obvious: 3 to 6 years of experience to become a mid-level developer vs. 5 to 10 to become a senior developer. All that extra experience pays off when developing any complex custom iOS app feature. A senior developer is more likely to know the best solutions which will mean faster development times, better performance, and fewer bugs.
iOS Developer Location
Developers living in the United States, Canada, and Europe need to charge higher hourly rates due to the higher cost of living rates in these regions. As a general rule, the cheaper the country, the lower the iOS developer costs. However, in the case of India, the country produces millions of new developers every year. This increases competition and dives down the hourly price.
Full-time IOS Developer vs. hourly
It is cheaper to hire an iOS developer on a full-time basis than paying by the hour. A full-time developer can be paid less overall because they have job security and a regular paycheck. However, most companies only need an iOS developer to build their new app so don’t need to hire a developer on a full-time basis. This is why hourly developers are the only option.
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Remote vs. in-house.
Hiring remote developers allows you to access a vast pool of developers. This can not only help you find the exact skills that you need but also help to reduce costs vs. hiring full-time, in-house developers. Since there are so many developers competing for jobs, it reduces the hourly rate.
However, don’t focus on trying to save money when hiring developers. Hiring cheap developers nearly always ends up costing you more due to them taking longer to develop apps as well as debugging their poorer-quality code.
Cost to hire iOS developers by region:
The United States (San Francisco, Denver, Miami)
$55 – $300 per hour or $10,400 – $48,000 per month, $124,800 to $576,000 per year full-time.
Western Europe (Great Britain, Germany, France)
$45 and $200 per hour or $8,000 to $32,000 a month, $96,000 to $384,000 per year full-time.
Eastern Europe (Estonia, Poland, Serbia)
$35 and $150 per hour, or $5,600 to $24,000 per month, $67,200 to $288,000 per year full-time.
India (Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai)
$10 and $65 per hour or $1,600 to $10,400 per month, $19,200 to $124,800 per year full-time.
Cost of hiring iOS developers in the United States on a full-time, annual basis by state:
Please note that these figures are based on hiring an iOS developer into your company on a full-time basis and so you will notice are lower than the figures provided above which relate to outsourcing developers on a temporary basis.
California (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco): $103,677 – $154,250 per year
Colorado (Denver, Colorado Springs, Greenwood Village): $111,000 – $124,000 per year
Illinois (Chicago, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield): $106,228 – $123,440 per year
Maryland (Fort Washington, Baltimore, Annapolis): $90,001 – $115,000 per year
Massachusetts (Boston, Worcester, Springfield): $112,500 – $113,875 per year
New York (Albany, New York, Brooklyn): $112,500 – $166,400 per year
Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas): $93,917 – $121,811 per year
If you wish to read more about hiring remote developers then read this guide.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop an iOS App in 2024?
As with the Apple app developers, the cost of developing an iOS app varies a lot depending on the size and scope of the iOS project.
Since all projects are different, the best way to estimate the amount that your app will cost to build is to see what similar Apple apps cost to create.
1. Simple iOS app prototype or version that can be used to test the marketplace
Creating a simple iOS app prototype will cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, depending on the complexity of the desired prototype. It will require 1 to 3 developers to build it and will take anywhere from 1 to 8 weeks to build.
Note: These figures are for a bare-bones prototype with no QA specialists or designers.
To give you a better idea of the kind of iOS app I am talking about, here is an iOS app from HitFactor that was built as a basic prototype before being enhanced in successive updates. HitFactor is a shooting app that allows users to record and analyze their gun shooting technique in order to improve their skills.
An original prototype was launched to test the basic features of the idea. It proved a big success, which allowed the product owner to enhance certain features according to user feedback.
2. An iOS MVP Project for a mid-level Enterprise Company or Startup
An iOS MVP application will cost anywhere from $50K to $250K and require anywhere from 2+ developers, a designer, a QA engineer, and any specialist skills like AI or blockchain developers, etc. to build.
More and more companies today are doing the wise thing and undertaking itinerant software development. For those of you new to software development, this means that companies will start out by building a basic version or MVP of their app. This version will have all the essential features that will allow them to launch their app idea and test it with potential users or customers.
Using customer feedback, developers can then enhance or add well-received features while removing any undesirable ones at the same time. This iterative approach is the backbone of several leading development methodologies including Agile.
To give you a better idea of the kind of iOS app I am talking about, here is a mobile fitness iOS app that was built as a basic prototype before being enhanced in successive updates.
3. A complex enterprise-level custom iOS Project
Typically, a custom-made multi-feature enterprise iOS app will cost anywhere from $250,000 and up. It will require anywhere from 6 iOS application engineers, designers, QA engineers, and others to build. The build timeframe is anywhere from around 6 months and longer.
A good example is the Photofy app, which is an advanced content creation application that allows users to utilize a range of powerful tools to add a professional look to their photos. The Photofy application is integrated with the main social media outlets, making it a powerful tool for content creators and influencers.
Defining Your iOS App Features
The iOS application market might be lucrative but your app will need to stand out and offer everything that your users want, if it is to succeed.
Imagine that you created a fintech app for money management, for example, that had the same features as all your competitors, what would be the reason for users to switch to using yours?
Now imagine that you created an exciting new fintech app that looks great and is very easy and reliable to use. Added to this, your app has a few highly innovative new features such as an AI voice system that allows users to manage their money via voice controls, and a quick money transfer system that only needs a QR code, etc.
Which do you think will attract the most users?
While you will want to offer some innovative features, you will also need to know all the other features that your app will need. This will help you define everything from your budget to the number of iOS developers that you will need.
Just compare the original Apple App Store app user interface for the iPhone to today’s version and you can get a picture of what I mean. Try to spot the main features as well as how these have been updated since 2008.
The obvious examples are product listings, icon listings, drop buttons, and a quick link feature.
It is interesting to see how Apple has refined its iPhone App Store app to improve its customer experience. The addition of a user profile button, bigger and better product listings, as well as an upgraded version of the bottom menu with better quick-find buttons, make the latest version much more appealing to users.
Creating a full feature list is a must. It will help you to visualize your app and even improve the features, user interface design, and user workflow. A great way to start is to start from the beginning. Sounds obvious but it is great advice.
You have just turned on your app, what do you see and where does that take you? Taking users straight into user signup, for example, will put many off if they are new, so you want to let them get into the main interface to look around, then ask them to a signup screen later on, if possible.
Go step by step through your app and write down all the features that you want to see, including where and when. This way you will have a list of your product features in no time. Then you can move on to hiring an iOS developer or iOS development team.
What Kind of iOS Developers Do You Need Objective-C or Swift?
The answer to this question is very simple. If you are looking to update an existing Apple app that was written in Objective-C (it is possible to convert an app from Objective-C to Swift) or want to create a new app that needs to be heavily integrated with an Objective-C database then you will need to hire an Objective-C developer.
Note: Most older or senior iOS developers will know both Objective C as well as Swift. Objective-C was the original programming language that Apple developed to allow iOS developers to create apps for its Apple App Store. However, Objective-C had its limitations, so Apple created Swift back in 2014.
Since the release of Swift, most new Apple products have been written using it, meaning that many new iOS developers have very little experience, if any, coding in Objective C. Keep this in mind when hiring iOS developers. Hire Swift developers if you plan to develop a new iOS app.
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Objective C vs. Swift: Pros and Cons
Objective C was originally released back in the 1980s, making it one of the oldest programming languages used to build mobile apps. This makes Object C some 30 years older than Swift. Since Apple has switched its development focus to Swift, it goes without saying that Swift is the better programming language when it comes to developing modern Apple applications. Here are a few of the advantages of Swift.
The main difference is that Swift allows developers to write simplified code, i.e. removing the need for coders to write square brackets and semicolons. This means that a Swift developer can concentrate on the core of the code, something which helps them write clean and maintainable code. This also helps prevent mistakes that lead to bugs, which is particularly important with junior developers.
Swift also includes many innovative features including optional and type inference, which also lead to cleaner code with fewer bugs. Objective-C also makes memory management quite difficult and time-consuming for developers. Swift has solved this problem with its Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), which keeps track of how many references relate to a specific class. Once the number drops to zero, ARC frees up the memory being used by that class.
The final thing worth mentioning is support. While Apple still supports Objective-C, the level of support has dropped a lot in recent years. This is because more and more developers are using Swift, meaning that fewer and fewer library solutions are being developed for Objective-C. Eventually, this falling interest in Objective-C will lead to Apple dropping its support too.
Backend Service Providers
You will need to select a reliable backend service provider who can host your app and the right backend developers who have the knowledge and experience to write the code and set your iOS app.
Naturally, you will want fast load times and reliability. The good news is that most service providers today offer this. However, some are still better than others. Here are my top pick backend service providers:
Google Cloud Platform GCP
Google Cloud Platform offers approximately 1,534 products and services along with 1,415 APIs belonging to the virtual machine category. This makes GCP a very powerful development platform that includes powerful tools such as Google Compute Engine and Google’s Cloud Source Repositories tool.
It is an excellent choice for those wishing to develop artificial intelligence solutions, thanks to its extensive AI and ML capabilities.
Amazon Web Services AWS
AWS still remains the world’s leading backend service provider. Thanks to the vision of founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon was an early investor in cloud infrastructure and so took an early lead in this field.
It also provides a wide range of powerful tools like AWS Amplify, which helps developers execute their apps in a safe test environment. This and other features help speed up development times and vastly improve reliability and performance.
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud is another excellent backend provider. Though its cloud offerings are geared toward the enterprise market, IBM Cloud is still a good choice for most iOS developers.
It offers a wide range of exciting tools including Red Hat OpenShift, a hybrid cloud container platform for those companies developing hybrid solutions. Red Hat OpenShift allows iOS developers to build once and deploy their iOS apps anywhere.
IBM Cloud Satellite, meanwhile, allows iOS developers to create a hybrid environment that offers maximum scalability and the ability to deploy to multiple clusters. IBM is also one of the world’s leaders in AI tool technologies.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure or Azure is used by many of the Fortune 500 companies thanks to its wide range of tools and technologies. Azure offers IaaS, Platform as a Service or PaaS, Software as a Service (SaaS), and serverless cloud platforms.
Azure has a range of tools that have been specifically developed for both iOS and Android development, which help with everything from the development of notification services, back-end tasks, creating APIs, and more.
Additional iOS Developer Skills:
- Experience using Apple OS frameworks like Core Data, Core Graphics, Core Text, etc.
- Knowledge of IDEs like AppCode, Xcode, CodeRunner.
- Experience with app development frameworks such as RxSwift, AVFoundation, UIKit, XCTest, etc.
- Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and tools such as Jenkins, Azure, GitLab.
- Knowledge of UI and UX design guidelines.
- Knowledge of relevant project development methodologies such as Agile, Waterfall, etc.
- Ability to quickly master your project management tools.
- Good communication skills.
- Great project-solving skills and critical thinking.
6 Steps to Hire an iOS Developer
Here are the 6 essential steps to hire an iOS engineer.
Step 1: Project requirements.
Your iOS project requirements are specific functionalities or features and goals that your project must meet to be successful. They are essential and must be completed before you begin the design and software development phases.
While your iOS app’s project requirements will evolve as you develop the app, particularly once you launch the application and start analyzing customer feedback, the overall goal and core features are likely to remain the same.
As suggested above, walk yourself through the process of using your app in your head with your specific goals in mind. Create a list of your iOS application’s functional requirements and non-functional requirements.
Keep in mind your business goals as well as your technical requirements. I.e. what level of scalability/performance/security will your app require, etc.?
Once you have your project requirements, you will be able to see what type of developers you will need.
Step 2: What type of developers will I need for an iOS project?
The type and number of developers that you will need for your iOS project will depend on the tech stack that you have chosen along with the complexity of your project.
I gave some examples at the start of this article that show you how many developers you will need for specific-sized projects. I also gave a list of skills that you will need from your iOS developer.
For a typical Apple development project, it is almost certain you will need one or more mid-level or senior Swift developers. If your project is mid or enterprise level then you will need multiple Swift developers and an iOS designer.
You will need at least one frontend and backend developer. If you require any specialized technology like AI, ML, or blockchain then you will need AI developers, machine learning specialists, data scientists, blockchain developers, etc.
If you are not sure then get hold of someone who has iOS development experience. A great idea is to contact a few software development companies that specialize in iOS development. They will be able to analyze your software requirements and tell you exactly what you need. That brings us to your choice of hiring platform.
Step 3: Software development company or freelancer platform?
Once you have the above details then you can write out a job description template. You will need this to post any iOS developer job on a job board or a freelancer website. This template will also help you to speed up the process of contacting software development companies.
Unless you are looking to hire an iOS engineer on a full-time basis then you have two options when hiring outsource iOS developers – software development company or freelancer platforms.
Hire iOS developers from a Software development company
Ask anyone in the software development industry and they will tell you the safest option to hire developers is a dedicated software development company that outsources its full-time iOS app engineers and development teams.
Advantages of hiring developers from a software development company:
- Can hire from a wide range of expert developers.
- Developers work for the company full-time and are fully vetted.
- Your developers will have experience building projects like yours.
- The best software development companies assign an account manager to help manage any developers or development teams that you outsource.
- The best software development companies assign a complimentary quality control or QA professional to check your iOS application before release.
- Free use of their project management tools and processes.
- Strict contracts that guard your intellectual property (IP) rights.
- A risk-free trial means you can try out a developer and switch should you not be 100% happy (this is extremely rare).
Hire iOS developers from a freelancer platform
Hiring iOS developers from a freelance platform is an excellent option if you have a small hobby project and are on a very tight budget.
Since you will most likely only need a single developer, reviewing the hundreds of applications you will get and interviewing the 10 – 30 developers that you shortlist will only take a week or so. Having to do this for larger projects that require 3 to 10 professionals is nothing less than a nightmare to be totally honest.
Other disadvantages of hiring a freelance iOS developer include:
- Only work part-time on your project as they have multiple projects running at once.
- Time-consuming vetting process including checking up on their past projects.
- Freelancers might leave your project mid-way.
- Risk of intellectual property theft.
- No project management tools or managerial oversight.
I strongly recommend that you avoid hiring freelancers at all costs. You would not believe the number of companies that I speak to on a weekly basis who are in real trouble because their freelancer has either oversold their abilities and has been fired or has left with little notice to undertake a more lucrative project.
Save yourself the headaches and outsource your iOS developer from a professional software development company.
Step 4: Interview your iOS candidates
You will need to undertake 3 interviews. These are the primary interview, the skills interview, and the final interview.
Primary interview
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You need to narrow down your list of candidates, and a general first interview is the way to do this.
In this interview, you will be able to go over each candidate’s foundational knowledge and establish their communication skills, general approach to problems, as well as their motivation for wanting to take part in your project.
Here are some great questions most people forget to ask:
- Do they know Waterfall, Agile, or whatever methodology you have chosen?
- Do they know how to use your specific task tracker?
- What communication tools do they use? I.e. Slack, etc.
- Do they have a Github repository account or can they use yours?
You will also be able to establish their work hours to ensure that they will be available to communicate for at least part of your workday.
I strongly advise that you hire only developers who have at least a 4-hour work time overlap during part of your workday, otherwise, you will not be able to get a response on the same day, something that will be very frustrating during planning, and problem-solving sessions.
Finally, you will be able to go over salary and employment timelines to make sure that they agree. You will likely get rid of 50% of your freelancer candidates during this initial interview.
Skills interview
The skills interview is your chance to test your iOS developer candidate skills. If you don’t have experience in iOS development then I strongly recommend that you get an iOS professional to help you out. You need to test candidates’ solutions by asking them follow-up questions about their answers. This requires an experienced engineer.
Here are a few iOS developer questions that will help you.
I recommend giving a test interview during this stage too. Give them a coding problem (related to your project) and a time limit to solve it. This will allow you to ensure that they write clean code and see how they use various frameworks and tools. If they impress you enough then you can shortlist them for the final interview.
Final Interview
You should be down to 3 or 4 candidates by this point (assuming you are only hiring one developer).
This will be the most in-depth interview that should test each candidate’s abilities in full. You should prepare a more in-depth set of questions that specifically relate to your project.
For example, you might want them to integrate a chatbot feature or product list feature. Without telling them too many specifics, give them a general picture of what you need and ask them how they would solve it, including what tools and technologies they would use and why.
Step 5: Carefully review their past projects
I cannot empathize strongly enough with the need to carefully review and check a candidate’s references and past projects. You can ask your candidate to demo their past projects during the final interview.
This is a great way to double-check their abilities after the skills tests.
Step 6: Onboard your iOS developer
You will have to make a decision on which of your few remaining developers that you want to hire. Take your time and get it right.
Once you have done so, you will need to onboard your Apple iOS developer. This will involve getting them to sign your non-disclosure agreement or NDA before giving them all the details about your project.
You will then need to set them up on all your tools and introduce them to your team. At this time, you should also establish communication protocols and detail your development approach and expectations.
That’s about it. You should now be able to set your new iOS developer loose on your project.
Top 5 Companies to Hire iOS Developers in 2024
DevTeam.Space
DevTeam.Space is a community of 1200 developers and 62 development teams that is based in the United States and Europe. All of its full-time developers are fully vetted by the company and work under NDAs when requested.
The company has a 99% success rate after building hundreds of projects. It has worked with the likes of Disney, Airbus, and NEC, helping them to build their next-generation applications. Part of its success is down to its unique AI-power Agile process and the fact that it assigns a dedicated account manager to every developer, designer, and development team that it outsources.
Arc
Arc is a remote career platform that links freelance software developers with companies looking to hire them. The company claims to have 350,000 developers around the world, however, you will not be able to access vetted developers without paying for a subscription.
Their current and past employee reviews on Trustpilot are very positive, on the whole. Arc promises to link client companies with suitable developers within 72 hours.
Upwork
UpWork is the world’s largest freelancer platform. It has millions of freelancers covering everything from writers, filmmakers, and influencers to software developers and designers.
You only need to set up an account, post your job description, and start interviewing your iOS developer candidates. You need to pay through the platform so keep in mind that UpWork takes a 10-20% fee from all freelancers. Factor this into your pay rate.
Fiverr
Fiverr is an Israeli-based freelancer platform. It is not developer-specific but rather is a general skill freelancer platform. It has an iOS developer section, so once you post your job description, you will get lots of applicants.
Toptal
Toptal claims to only allow the top 3% of freelancers onto its platform. It is a software development-specific platform that gives a little extra piece of mind that you will be getting better talent applying for your iOS project.
The platform allows you to hire software developers, designers, managers, and other consultants.
Conclusion
Finding the ideal iOS developer for your project is not that hard when you know where to look.
DevTeam.Space has a vibrant community comprising of 62 expert development teams and over 1200 skilled developers.
Their platform has partnered with some of the biggest companies in the world as well as countless incredible startups. You can join this list of highly successful companies.
All you have to do is to submit your web developer request. Once you have done so, DevTeam.Space will match you with suitable iOS developers within just 72 hours so you can get on with your project development.
DevTeam.Space offers transparent pricing details and a risk-free trial to all clients. In the rare instance, you are not 100% happy with your developer, they provide a new one at no extra cost. However, with over 350 projects completed and a success rate of 99%, it is very unlikely that this will ever happen.
When you engage iOS developers from DevTeam.Space, you will be allocated a dedicated account manager who has lots of experience managing projects like yours. Additionally, they provide a complimentary quality assurance engineer or QA to test all new features and pre-release applications. This senior QA specialist will ensure optimal performance and security of your finished iOS product.
For those in need of expert software development services, simply fill out their user-friendly DevTeam.Space hiring form. Their dedicated tech account managers will promptly reach out to schedule a complimentary discovery call to answer any questions that you may have.
