LinkedIn Report Names “Blockchain Developer” the Top Emerging Job of 2018

| Updated
by Teuta Franjkovic · 4 min read
LinkedIn Report Names “Blockchain Developer” the Top Emerging Job of 2018
Photo: Pixabay

LinkedIn, a social network for finding business contacts and job opportunities, has published its annual Economic Graph, where it listed top-5 emerging jobs that develop at the quickest pace among the others.

It did not come as a surprise for many people that the top-1 emerging job was “blockchain developer”.

A report prepared by job review site Glassdoor shows that as of August 2018, U.S. companies had posted 1,775 vacancies related to blockchain technology, which is three times more compared to the previous year. 79 percent of the vacancies are concentrated in the 15 largest American cities, and the most saturated demand regions show that New York and San Francisco account for 24 percent and 21 percent of the total number of crypto-industry job offers.

The professional social network found that the role of blockchain developer has registered an increase of 33 times in the past 12 months, and among major skills required for the role, LinkedIn notes solidity, blockchain, Ethereum, cryptocurrency, and Node.js.

The rest of the top-5 are: application sales executive, machine learning specialist and professional medical representative.

This year’s top emerging jobs also include artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, wherein “six out of the 15 emerging jobs are related in some way to AI,” and machine learning engineers, with 12 times growth year-over-year. For the latter roles, LinkedIn names deep learning, machine learning, tensorflow, Apache Spark and natural language processing as major required skills.

The cities with the highest demand for blockchain specialists are New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta, and the top industries involving such workers are IT and computer software. The salaries absolutely correspond to the popularity of the profession.

Still Not Sure Whether Blockchain Will be Long-Term Trend

In LinkedIn they said:

“Only time will tell if blockchain will be a long-standing trend in the job market, but take note of the jobs that are on both this year’s and last year’s Emerging Jobs lists: Machine Learning Engineer, Assurance Staff, and Sales Development Representative. These roles cover a variety of business functions and skills, and are here to stay.”

Researchers also predict that AI will have applications across nearly every industry sector, from manufacturing to financial services and beyond. In LinkedIn, they say they did look across industries to figure out whether AI is still confined to the software industry, or if it has begun to spill over and impact other fields. “The answer? Nearly every industry is starting to see an influx of AI-related skills.”

As AI skills become increasingly relevant, they were also interested in better understanding whether typically “human” skills, e.g., those related to personal characteristics, interpersonal communication and cognitive skills, are on the rise as well.

“Our finding may not come as a surprise: at least for now, humanity isn’t going anywhere.”

On average, more than one in four (26%) of all skills reported in 2017 by LinkedIn members based in the US can be classified as interpersonal or soft skills. Soft skills like project management and leadership are also among the fastest-growing “unique” skills. Consider positions like “System Engineer”, in 2015, soft and interpersonal skills made up less than 1% of the skills required to succeed in the job.

Now, they make up 8%. There is no doubt that AI skills are on the rise, but some typically human skills that today cannot be replicated by machines have been growing almost as fast and are here to stay.

Social network Facebook also listed five new blockchain-related jobs on its careers page within the past three weeks. In the job description for blockchain engineer at the Facebook Blockchain Data Engineering team, the ad characterizes the position as technically and intellectually challenging work, which “will have massive global impact.”

Though 2018 may have been a banner year for blockchain devs, it’s unclear whether this year’s massive growth will continue into 2019. The drop-off in fundraising noted by Fabric occurred just before a sharp decline in the crypto markets in November, along with multiple reports of layoffs and shutdowns among blockchain firms.

One of the firms mentioned in the LinkedIn report, ConsenSys, announced last week it would be laying off 13 percent of its workforce, while Bitmain, a Chinese firm which manufactures mining hardware, recently closed an R&D facility in Israel. Investors have also lost billions investing in blockchain startups in recent years. Though there is still a sizeable pool of capital looking for blockchain talent, the industry appears to be tightening its belt.

Blockchain News, News
Related Articles