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According to research by Glassdoor, an employee review site, blockchain-related jobs are on the rise. The report confirmed that, despite the price volatility and regulatory uncertainty, there has been a rapid increase in employment in the cryptocurrency space.
Key Findings
The realities of the current employment landscape are clearly being felt by blockchain technology. In Glassdoor’s database, some 1,755 blockchain-related jobs were posted on the site for August, 2018 in the United States. There has been a 300% increase of blockchain-related employment since last year.
Median salary for this new industry was found to $84,884 per year, 61% higher than the current US median salary of $52,461. This data was collected using Glassdoor’s Local Pay Report for August, 2018.
The top metros for blockchain-related job openings were in the key metropolitan cities: New York, San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago. New York and San Francisco alone almost account for 50% of all listings on Glassdoor. However, the report also looked at global listings on their site and found that London, Singapore, and Toronto topped their list.
Most blockchain-related jobs were also found to be technical in scope. Most common skills needed were some level of software engineering, being required for some 19 percent of all blockchain-related listings. However, other positions were also popular including product managers, front-end engineers, analyst relations managers, and technical consultants. However, there is also room in the current employment market for other technical experts, managers, designers, writers, and many other aspects of this still-young blockchain space.
A Surge in Popularity
The findings by Glassdoor should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the cryptocurrency space for at least a few months. This niche technological sector exploded last year without really establishing the necessary infrastructure and employees to sustain this rise. Therefore, we are now in the process of what can best be called “rebuilding.” The rise in employment in the blockchain sector is indicative of an industry maturity that previously did not exist in the cryptocurrency space.
The space’s maturation is evidenced in the report since established companies were leading the pack in their hiring practices. For example, ConsenSys was responsible for 12% of all job openings in August, 2018; IBM posted the same amount of job openings during this period. Coinbase, Figure, Oracle, Kraken, and Circle also posted significant job openings during this period. However, Glassdoor is not accounting for the vast array of small projects in the blockchain space who may have only a few employees each, but make up a massive part of the entire industry.
Because of the high reputation of many of of these firms, currently these positions boast an average salary well above the U.S. median. The technical skills required, compounded by the location in which they are based, means that blockchain-based companies have no choice but to provide higher salaries to attract talent. For example, in New York City alone the media pay for blockchain-related employment was $102,104 which is on par with the media pay for software engineers in the city ($104,630).
However, we have to keep in mind that Glassdoor is representing just a tiny fraction of all employment created by the blockchain space. Instead, Glassdoor is reporting on more official positions whereas many in the blockchain space work on contract, as freelancers, or work in more informal environments on trust and agreements. Because the space is still largely online, many employees in the blockchain-related space are arguably still unreported by Glasdoor. So, there is a case to be made that these current findings, while impressive, are limited in scope. They arguably underestimate the number of jobs currents in the blockchain-related space.
The report indicates that the cryptocurrency space is definitely growing in numbers. Not only is the industry experiencing exponential hiring rates, but it is doing so during a time of depressed price action. Generally speaking, if such negative price action was accompanied by depressed employment numbers, then we would have reason for concern. However, the Glassdoor report makes it clear that the space is growing rapidly despite the bearish market. What we can extrapolate from this is that the cryptocurrency space is just getting started and expectations for the future are very high. All in all, the report confirms one thing: the blockchain space is still lucrative as ever and there is much, much room to grow. It’s good news for all of us in the cryptocurrency world.