Statista and Grand View Research have compiled new market data that shows the global IT outsourcing market was expected to be worth between USD 780 billion and USD 800 billion in 2025, and it will continue to grow through 2026 as businesses spend more on outside software engineering. This growth is occurring because there are not enough skilled workers, the cost of engineering is increasing in Western markets, and the need for specialized technical skills in areas like AI, cloud computing, and secure development is growing faster.
Deloitte's most recent surveys show that 76% of IT managers now work with teams based in other countries. Additionally, almost 92% of the Global 2000 companies hire outside help for at least some IT work.
A Gartner analyst states that more and more companies will turn to IT services firms to fill in the gaps because there are not enough tech workers, even after recent layoffs.
The Harvard Business Review says that cloud platforms and APIs that connect different digital systems make it easier than ever for companies that specialize in certain areas to work together. This allows for very flexible work chains, with one group working on data pipelines and another on backend systems.
This detailed guide is all about outsourcing ASP.NET development, which is one of the most well-known and reliable stacks for enterprise web apps.
Before talking about outsourcing strategies, it is essential to understand why Microsoft .NET is still the best option for business-level web development in 2026.
.NET has evolved from a framework that only worked on Windows to a powerful tool that works on many platforms and supports the digital infrastructure of Fortune 500 companies, according to experts in the field. It is essential to remember why companies first hired outside help for ASP.NET development.
A lot of companies need to keep their old .NET Framework applications up to date or migrate to newer platforms. You can hire legacy modernization experts to do this kind of work.
For instance, a mid-sized US healthcare technology company needed to update their EHR software, but they did not have the staff and resources to accomplish the move on their own. They were able to switch their backend from the old .NET Framework to the new .NET in less than three months by partnering with Belitsoft. This enabled their software to work on more than one platform, which opened up the macOS market. The project was so successful that the partnership expanded to include a frontend migration from AngularJS to Angular, and the teams now collaborate on all ongoing product customization and development.
An ideal partner would offer long-term support and the ability to gradually rework or rebuild old programs on modern .NET without getting in the way of business. If your objective is maintenance or a one-time migration, it is essential to be clear about the scope.
Not all .NET developers who work on the web are familiar with desktop and mobile frameworks. A partner with the right portfolio will help by speeding up development.
.NET MAUI and other tools let you make mobile apps that work on more than one platform, not just the web. If your project needs specialized knowledge, make sure the outsourcing team has it.
A financial company, for instance, might need both a web portal and a secure desktop trading application (WPF). A full-service .NET company could handle both of these tasks in one place.
ASP.NET Core is the best way to build modern web apps, such as customer portals and pages with a lot of content. If you want to make an e-commerce website or web app, look for a team that has a lot of experience with web UI/UX and front-end integration, as well as .NET back-end skills.
For example, a vendor who has used ASP.NET to make web portals or online stores will know a lot about user experience, responsive design, and how to connect the front end and back end.
Big business software like CRM and ERP systems often use .NET. These projects require the ability to grow, have strong security, and have complicated integrations.
If you are redesigning or building an enterprise system, you should look for an outsourcing partner who knows how to build enterprise-grade architecture and has a history of handling big, complicated projects. A partner like this should be familiar with the basics of corporate solutions, such as testing, multi-tier architecture, and single sign-on.
The ASP.NET Web API is a part of ASP.NET Core that makes RESTful APIs and microservices. When you hire someone to build a backend service or API, make sure they have experience in creating scalable, well-documented APIs (such as Azure Functions or ASP.NET Web API) and follow best practices for security and performance. It is also important to know how to integrate databases, caches, and cloud services.
When you hire someone else to do ASP.NET development, it is very important that they know what they are doing. ASP.NET is part of the larger Microsoft stack, so you need a team that knows how to use the specific technologies your project needs.
What sets the best .NET developers apart from the rest is their ability to work with the entire stack.
First, ensure that their developers know how to use ASP.NET Core, which is the newest version; you will need this for any current web project. That said, it is a big plus if they know how to handle the old ASP.NET Framework as well, especially if you have older systems. Not all businesses need to replace their old code; some need to integrate with it.
Ask them about their experience with ASP.NET MVC for making web applications and ASP.NET Web API for creating robust APIs. A good team will know when to use MVC and when to use newer patterns, such as minimal APIs. They will also ensure that everything is in place so that the code can be broken up into parts and tested. That is how you prevent the dreaded "spaghetti code" from developing in six months.
Blazor is a newer framework that uses C# instead of JavaScript to create complex client-side web user interfaces. If you want to make interactive web user interfaces or SPAs (Single Page Applications), pick a provider who knows how to work with Blazor applications and knows how they are built. It helps to know React or Angular, but being an expert in Blazor means they can take advantage of its features, like WebAssembly quirks for Blazor WebAssembly or real-time state synchronization between client and server through Blazor Server.
Most ASP.NET apps need to connect to a database. Make sure every team member is familiar with ORMs like Entity Framework and Microsoft SQL Server. If you need to connect to third-party APIs, an old Oracle database, or NoSQL stores, make sure the vendor has done similar integrations before.
ASP.NET projects often use cloud hosting or services. If you want to use Microsoft Azure, your outsourcing partner should have developers who are certified by Azure and have worked with the services you need before. For serverless parts, you could use Azure Functions. For CI/CD, you could use Azure DevOps. For data, you could use Azure SQL or Cosmos DB. For hosting, you could use Azure App Services. An experienced cloud architecture team will design your app to be cloud-native, which means it will take care of things like security, distributed caching, auto-scaling, and more. If you want to use AWS or GCP instead, make sure they have worked with those clouds in a .NET setting.
In modern software development, deployments are expected to happen quickly and reliably. An experienced .NET outsourcing partner should help you build up infrastructure as code for deployments and pipelines for Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment. Common tools for this are Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins. Find out if they have DevOps engineers or developers who know how to use Docker, manage the cloud, and orchestrate containers. These are becoming more and more important parts of a full solution. The best partner will have experience in all of those areas, not just a few .NET knowledge, like if your project uses Blazor on the front end, an API on the back end, and Azure cloud. A knowledgeable vendor can even help you choose the best technologies for your goals.
You can choose from a large group of highly qualified engineers in places like Eastern Europe, which is known for having highly educated and skilled .NET developers. You do not have to follow the hiring rules in your area.
Learn advanced ASP.NET skills that your company may not have, like Blazor, Web API, and Azure. A good outsourcing company will hire highly skilled specialists like QA engineers, UI/UX designers, .NET developers, and others. This is useful if your team does not have any professionals in newer frameworks like Blazor or in cloud integration.
One way to cut development costs is to hire people in places where labor costs are lower. Many businesses find that developers from Eastern Europe offer the best mix of low prices and high quality. Compared to the US or Western Europe, businesses can usually save 50-60 percent on development costs without compromising quality.
India's time zone is close to U.S. business hours, and Eastern European time zones are exactly right for Western Europe. You can achieve development around the clock by coordinating schedules. For instance, U.S. teams can expect that Indian or Eastern European teams are actively coding at the end of their workday, which effectively extends productivity to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and cuts time-to-market by a huge amount.
Scale your team size for a project quickly. An outsourcing partner can quickly provide more experienced developers instead of recruiting and training new employees. To meet project needs, top providers can increase the size of their teams or bring on experts, such as cloud architects or additional QA. This adaptability speeds up development and aids in meeting deadlines.
Outsourcing development work lets your internal team focus on important business tasks, such as strategy and product management, while the external team handles the implementation. Your management costs go down because the outsourcing partner often takes care of a significant portion of the development work, especially in project-based contracts.
The Harvard Business Review says that the best way to get the most out of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is to find a balance between competitive rates and high-quality, vetted engineering talent. If lower hourly rates lead to more communication, rework due to bad quality, or intellectual property risks, they do not always mean lower project costs.
Gartner says that IT outsourcing is moving away from simple time-and-material contracts and toward managed services and outcome-based models. For ASP.NET projects, it may be necessary to use "PODs," which are cross-functional teams of developers, testers, and architects who only work on your product. This model combines the ability to grow with an outside partner with the stability of an inside team.
About the Author:
Dmitry Baraishuk is a partner and Chief Innovation Officer at a software development company Belitsoft (a Noventiq company). He has been leading a department specializing in custom software development for 20 years. The department has hundreds of successful projects in AI software development, healthcare and finance IT consulting, application modernization, cloud migration, data analytics implementation, and more for startups and enterprises in the US, UK, and Canada.
By: Chris Bates
