where to source blockchain talent

Blockchain Development: Epic Talent Shortages Despite Unprecedented Demand

Blockchain development was the fastest-growing skill among American freelance and remote programmers and software engineers in H2 2018, according to the latest Upwork Skills Index. Blockchain dev skills surpassed 5,000 other skills form the Upwork list of the fastest-growing skills.

In addition, Go, a Google-developed programming language that’s perfectly suited for the blockchain development is among the top 20 most sought-after skills in the United States. Going forward, Go (aka Golang) is believed to generate a higher demand within the software development ecosystem than blockchain development itself.

Distributed ledger technology solutions rank 1ston Upwork for 6 consecutive months, with the number of job applicants having increased 4 times over this period.

Year-over-year growth of blockchain skills has exceeded 2,000% for the past four quarters, and it experienced more than 3,500% year-over-year growth in H2 2018.

When it comes to employer preferences, Solidity and NodeJS engineers, developers, and architects are the most sought-after ones, followed by C++.

According to KPMG Pulse of Fintech 2018 Report, investor interest in blockchain-based startups and products has increased significantly since 2017. This statement is generally supported by IDC that predicts that by 2022, blockchain investments will reach $11.7 globally.

Speaking about the geographic breakdown, USA is an indisputable leader holding 36% of all blockchain investments. Japan and Canada are expected to tag along and gain blockchain leadership with 108% and 86% CAGR respectively.

Check out our custom blockchain development cases: from MVP of an ICO reviews platform to invoice factoring solutions to XDR wallet to distributed immutable data storage development.

It’s safe to assume that an increased blockchain investment volume has generated demand for specialists skilled in blockchain developers. As the blockchain investments volume is expected to grow to $2 trillion by 2030, the demand for blockchain dev talent will keep increasing and blockchain as a technology will be used far beyond the crypto world to ensure proof of stake, proof of work, proof of ownership, etc. As such, it’ll penetrate deeply in assets/goods management, logistics, HR, and other verticals apart from FinTech/InsurTech.

When the American job market heats up, demand for technology talent boilsBloomberg

While in the US the national unemployment rate dropped to only 4%, less than 2% of software developers are looking for a job now. Although blockchain developers commanded high wages in the past 2 years, 2019 will be the year when companies will be writing much bigger paychecks for top developers, which means that businesses trying to attract fresh talent should think way outside the curly brackets. According to Paysa, the average blockchain developer salary in the US is $95,545 with top earners receiving an average salary of roughly $140,000 (see image below). This places blockchain developers among some of the highest paid developers out of any professional field.

Screen Shot 2019 04 08 at 4.05.40 PM e1554728832741 - Blockchain Development: Epic Talent Shortages Despite Unprecedented Demand

Source: Paysa

According to Forbes, “growing shortage of blockchain developers is a well-documented concern that has been touted since the elevation of the technology into the mainstream.” Despite all the hype around the distributed ledger tech, there’s an unmatched demand for blockchain developers as both legacy enterprises and innovative startups are looking to build upon this early-stage tech. Given business giants like Mastercard and IBM have filed over 80 patents for blockchain-related technologies, finding sufficient talent for in-house, remote and/or outsourced blockchain development teams is a critical issue preventing businesses from scaling and slowing down technology evolution in general.

As 92% of business leaders view blockchain as an opportunity today, with supply chain and IoT being the leading practical applications, how will the skills gap be bridged?

You can find the answer in a previous article by our CEO on where and how to source top blockchain dev talent.

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