Skills gaps are exciting because they mean the industry is growing. In the case of blockchain, it also means that the industry can’t grow fast enough.

Interrogating the Blockchain Skills Gap

Cryptocurrency is one of the flashiest faces of blockchain technology. However, if you’re really in the know, you know that blockchain is a lot bigger than just Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. In fact, experts in the blockchain industry are in increasingly high demand.

When the academic turnout of specialists fails to meet the demand of an industry, it’s called a “skill gap”. It’s a problem that faces many new technologies. While having this shortage is exciting for the industry – it means the industry is growing – it also means that the industry cannot meet its full potential until the skills gap is filled.

What is Blockchain?

The term “blockchain” is the key to visualizing how this open-source technology works. Each block is a discrete piece of data. Each block in a chain is linked to another block and contains all of the blocks that came before it.

So, why is this so complicated? It’s definitely easier said than done. The computer know-how for creating chains out of blocks is hard to come by.

Now, why is it so important? If “because cryptocurrencies” was the only answer, it would be a good enough answer. However, there’s so much more to distributed ledger than that.

For one thing, it’s a secure and transparent way of accessing data. Because the discrete data sets are linked together, it’s very easy to tell if something has been changed. It’s also a very efficient way of storing and sending data.

Understanding where blockchain exists outside of cryptocurrencies is important for understanding how crucial it is to have talent with in-depth knowledge of blockchain technology. It’s also important for understanding why so many experts are required.

The Skill Gap

As mentioned, there’s no shortage of blockchain-related job postings. LinkedIn first made the crisis known with their 2018 jobs report. The report listed “blockchain developer” as the year’s top emerging job. The top skills needed that the report listed aside from blockchain were also programming languages such as Solidity and Node.js.

Demand was determined by looking at the skills of people on the site being hired compared to looking at hirers in pursuit of that skill. According to that report and subsequent analysis, there just aren’t as many blockchain developers to go around. In particular, the most in-demand job titles are software engineer, senior software engineer, software architect, front end and full stack developer.

We did discuss the fact that there are uses for the technology beyond crypto. However, another recent report found that “crypto developer” is a rapidly growing job market. This demand from crypto puts even more demand on the talent market. The report mentions that in order to stand out, job seekers interested in various cryptocurrency and blockchain jobs should be familiar with blockchain development languages such as Hyperledger, Bitcoin Script, Ethereum’s Solidity, and the Ripple protocol.

And the most recent LinkedIn report reveals that blockchain skills are actually the number one most in-demand hard skills in 2020. According to the LinkedIn Talent Blog post, blockchain “is the most in-demand skill in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia.” The post also emphasises that financial services are not the only sector that can benefit from blockchain talent. “Recruiters should start becoming familiar with how blockchain works, what its perceived benefits are, and who are the people best suited to help your company explore where this budding technology might have a role.”

If you are planning to start a new career this year, or just improve your value in the jobs market, the best thing that you can do is acquire some blockchain skills. Companies around the world are looking for people with capabilities in this field and it appears that demand far outpaces the supply.

Companies Need Much More Blockchain Talent

New research based on data from the employment-oriented networking platform Linkedin shows that blockchain tops the list of most in-demand hard skills for 2020. The ranking of the most needed skills was made by looking at those that are in high demand relative to their supply. Demand was measured by identifying the skills listed on the career profiles of people who are getting hired at the highest rates. It divided the skills into two groups. Hard skills include specialized knowledge and technical abilities to handle a specific task, while soft skills are more about behavior and thinking, personal traits and cognitive skills.

This high ranking shows how rapid the technology is penetrating the business world, as blockchain wasn’t even on the list a year ago. It has also beaten to the top other popular corporate buzzword fields such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The research further shows that blockchain is the most in-demand skill right now in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia.

This analysis was conducted to help corporate recruiters understand what skills are most required for their firms to stay competitive in the business world going forward. Linkedin’s Talent Blog head writer, Bruce Anderson, explained: “Blockchain has emerged from the once shadowy world of cryptocurrency to become a business solution in search of problems. Which means that you don’t have to be in financial services to be seeking new hires who have background and expertise in putting blockchain to use. So, recruiters should start becoming familiar with how blockchain works, what its perceived benefits are, and who are the people best suited to help your company explore where this budding technology might have a role.”

Job Options Range From NASA Scientist to Meme Lord

This isn’t the first time that the career focused social network has shown the rapid growth of employment needs in the field. For example, in December 2018 Linkedin published its “Emerging Jobs Report” for the United States, in which it named “Blockchain Developer” as the most rapidly emerging employment position of the year. According to that report, the position saw growth of 33x on Linkedin’s platform during 2018.

As Linkedin’s Talent Blog explained to recruiters, “Blockchain has become a line of business for a who’s who of the corporate world — IBM, Oracle, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Amazon, and American Express, to name just a few. Blockchain is now being used in industries ranging from shipping to healthcare, from farming and food safety to entertainment and gaming.” In September 2019, we reported that even NASA announced it needed a data scientist for its Jet Propulsion Laboratory research and development facility in California with experience in cryptocurrency and blockchain.

If you have these much needed skills, a search for wanted ads containing the term ‘Blockchain’ on Linkedin currently shows that there are over 15,500 job vacancies around the world that might fit you. There are also more than 3,700 wanted ads on the site containing the term ‘Cryptocurrency.’ While there are more options for working at traditional companies with blockchain skills, only the crypto world can offer you such cool jobs as ‘Meme Lord,’ bitcoin street artist, and feeder of the hungry.

In this blockchain era, enterprises from various sectors and industries are grasping the concept of the decentralized ledger, The global wave of blockchain adoption among businesses and companies has grown on everyone to address the fundamental business challenges.

Do you have what it takes to earn money in this booming blockchain economy? Blockchain is consistently one of the highest paying developer fields. With a wide ecosystem, a range of factors determines the compensation beginner level blockchain developers get. Blockchain is quite a lucrative field from a developer’s perspective. You probably might have heard about this technology a lot but,

 

Why should I learn blockchain? And how do I become industry ready?
The growing demand for blockchain developers in India has been gaining traction since the past few years. Being one of the fastest-growing skill sets in the jobs market, blockchain as a domain has been growing at a mind-blowing rate of 2000% to 6000%. Blockchain developers salaries are being higher-up than conventional developer jobs at about 50% to 100%. The demand for blockchain developers in India is not being created only by the BFSI sector but also by its use cases in multiple different sectors such as healthcare, education, supply-chain management, government agencies, stock trading, cloud-computing and real estate. The decentralized nature of projects with distributed teams can translate into lakhs of high paying jobs from companies all over the world. Gartner predicts that the business value of blockchain technology will reach 3 trillion dollars by 2030.

 

What is the job market for Blockchain?
India has emerged as one of the top filers for blockchain patents last year as per the data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The country is seeing a rise in digital transactions and therefore industries are ramping up investments in blockchain.
With the shortage of talent and skills in the domain of blockchain, companies are always willing to pay higher compensation to blockchain professionals. As more companies and organisations are joining the blockchain field, annual blockchain developer salary in India has a range from 5 lacs to 30 lacs per annum. With higher experience and more profound skill sets, you can also get higher compensation as a salary package. The package also depends on the job position like an entry-level, mid-level or senior-level blockchain developer.

Blockchain jobs have dynamic salary packages, a professional can also earn around INR 45 lacs if they have an experience of three years in the field. This is higher than double of what a professional with 5 years of work experience would get without experience in blockchain technology.

Since the term blockchain is often used in parallel to the world cryptocurrency, a huge amount of jobs are available in the field of this technology. A lot of them are related to the technical aspect of it, but what about the non-technical aspect of the market? Yes, there are a huge amount of jobs in the non-technical aspect of blockchain. Below are some jobs listed in the top job portals:

But before that, let’s segregate them into technical and non-technical jobs and start from the lower end of payscale.

 

Technical Jobs in Blockchain

1. Blockchain Internship: Blockchain interns are responsible for the design and development of blockchain and distributed ledgers, depending on the open-source or proprietary platform. Entry-level positions also include developing proof of concepts and pilot blockchains as many companies are in test phases for DLT solutions.

Skills required for blockchain internship: NodeJs, Go, Restful APIs, React, Java, C++, Solidity, Truffle, CSS and HTML

 

2. Blockchain Developer: Being a developer is the greatest opportunity in this nascent field of blockchain. Financial services, governments, technology companies, healthcare institutions and many more companies are looking to find ways to serve their clients in a better way. They are always eager to hire a blockchain developer.

Skills required for blockchain developer: Microsoft SQL Server, Golang, .NET, MVC, C++, C, C#, Neural-Networks, Regression, Agile Scrum, MYSQL, SOAP, REST APIs, FTP, HTML, XML, XSLT, XCOD, JQuery, Javascript, Solidity, Truffle, NodeJs.

 

3. Blockchain Architect: A blockchain software architect is responsible for creating or selecting the most appropriate architecture for a system (or systems), such that it suits the business needs, satisfies stakeholder requirements, and achieves the desired results under given constraints.

Skills required for blockchain architect: All the skills of a blockchain developer + you need to make sane decisions on the costs and risks related to the non-functional requirement son the system. (Don’t worry, you will develop these skills by experience)

 

4. Blockchain Engineer: A blockchain engineer has a good understanding of blockchain-related technologies and can conceptualize a blockchain system.

They build applications using the blockchain technology and focus on developing the blockchain technology and the things that interact with it, like developing a new blockchain protocol and it’s currency.

Skills required for a blockchain engineer: All the skills of a blockchain developer + Cryptography + Concepts like incentivisation, supply and demand, adopting a new mindset focusing on efficiency, scalability and distributed computing, data structures and architecture.

 

Some ways to earn using your technical blockchain skills are by freelancing, working a 9 to 5, solving Gitcoin Bounties and having your blockchain-based startup.

 

Non-Technical Jobs

1. Research Analytics: Research analyst is of high value and high ROI to a form. They compile and present their findings to relevant stakeholders. Their information regarding partnerships, deal flows, competitors and a whole bunch of other things are of very high value to a firm. With the nascent blockchain industry trying to find its foot, there is a lack of existing knowledge base and this is when research analysts are of high value.
2. Smart Contract Auditing: This job lies more in the technical field but, is a lot different than writing smart contracts. With innumerous immutable smart contracts out there on the blockchain, they possess a lot of potential vulnerabilities and security threats. This leads to billions of dollars at risk and the sensitive data on the blockchain when we look into enterprise blockchains. With smart contracts growing, there is more need and opportunity for someone to combine cybersecurity skills and blockchain skills to capitalize on this domain.
3. Investment Analytics: Investment analysts are responsible for financial portfolio analysis, quantitative and qualitative project research. Since DeFi is booming, with that, a lot of investment analytics opportunities come up as billions of dollars are locked in there and they need to provide a return to the HODLERs.The best way to explore this is by using analytics skills.
4. Development Representative: The main reason why startups have a partner section on the landing page is that partnerships with larger companies prove extremely powerful for small startups. Startups and companies both need people who can make good B2B connections, get on calls, close deals, hold meetings and grow their business. So, startups and companies need business developers.