Mismatch Between Supply and Demand for Blockchain Developers
The ideal scenario is the one where the educational institutions and industries work together to keep a balance between job opportunities and skilled workforce. However, it is something we always come across, especially when we talk about the digital currency and the blockchain technology. The current, as well as the rising mismatch, between the supply and demand for blockchain developers, has ended up many students and professionals registering for the online courses on blockchain technology and bitcoin. Currently, only a small number of universities and institutions are offering truly professional blockchain courses that are focused on the exact skills required for the blockchain developers in the industry. These are the platforms that let people learn these much-required skills to get benefited from the rising demand for blockchain professionals across the industries, especially in the fields of IT, finance and banking.
The lack of experienced blockchain specialists also leads to a fat paycheck for professionals who just meet the requirements. Jared Kenna, an entrepreneur and investor in digital currency industry says that the supply of the professionals having extensive blockchain skills and experience, is quite low while the demand is rising faster. Often, they end up with 5 job offers a day. On average, an experienced blockchain developer may earn up to $220,000 per annum.
Jared further stated that the only means to supplement the rising blockchain talent demand at present is to hire a true blockchain expert having an extensive experience who can lead a team of people who have recently graduated from a blockchain technology course program or a blockchain boot camp. Currently, there are just 7000 to 8000 professionals who are able to work on the blockchain technology at different proficiency levels[1].
The Increasing Mismatch Between Supply & Demand for Blockchain Developers
The rising demand that is surpassing the supply, is attributed to the increasing number of blockchain startup in the United States, with each looking for hiring the best blockchain talent. Taking into consideration the LinkedIn data, this seems pretty true as more than 10000 blockchain jobs were listed on LinkedIn last year. According to the Financial Times, the number of blockchain-based ads is growing by more than 40 percent every quarter[2]. A clear mismatch can be seen in the number of qualified blockchain professionals signed up on LinkedIn (10000 users mention blockchain as their skill), while over 37,000 people’s profiles are thrown if the search is based on the keyword “blockchain”[3]. These figures may appear impressive at a first glance, but they also count the non-industry professionals like academicians, consultants, CFOs, CEOs and journalists, who are not directly hired by the blockchain companies to cater their requirements.
The direct effect of the mismatch between supply and demand for blockchain developers is seen on the pay scales. On average, an ordinary blockchain developer can easily make around $130,000 a year, while those having extensive experience and top-notch exposure in the blockchain industry, can make up to $650,000 a year, which is a difficult figure to reach in the tech industry.
Reducing the Mismatch Between Demand & Supply
Technology professionals in the machine learning and cryptography domains are the most suitable to specialize in the blockchain technology. In terms of domain, the professionals in finance, technology and insurance industries would witness blockchain transform the face of operations within the next few years. As per LinkedIn data, more than 20 percent of the blockchain jobs are still vacant, and that is where the blockchain professionals should try to reduce the gap, by developing industry-specific blockchain skills. This is the high time to take the plunge and learn new skills, for a bright future ahead.
Being an employer, if you want to keep pace with the blockchain projects’ demands, you need to polish your employees’ technical skills who are working on the blockchain. The simplest way is to let them work directly with the projects that they find exciting. Projects are funding those directly now who want to learn the blockchain programming as there is a severe mismatch in this space, from the novice to experts. Though the average pay of the Silicon Valley’s blockchain engineer is around $158,000, the programmers having an exposure in Solidity (a language for developing the smart contracts) is in high demand and short supply[4]. Hence, working on the exact skill sets and technology the industry is looking for and the employers are increasingly demanding, is the only way to reduce the mismatch between supply and demand for blockchain developers in the long run.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/blockchain-bootcamps-emerge-with-rising-demand-for-software-pros
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/f736b04e-3708-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3
[3] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-recruiting-blockchain-armando-pantoja/
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/shermanlee/2018/04/11/the-demand-for-blockchain-engineers-is-skyrocketing-but-blockchain-itself-is-redefining-how-theyre-employed/#23c2784d6715
