Photo/Shetuwang

Mar. 20 (NBD) -- As blockchain sees a boom this year, demand for the blockchain talents surges which far outstrips supply. To find professionals with right skills, companies start to offer alluring salary for blockchain-related positions.

In the first two months of 2018, the recruitment demand for blockchain-related talents has increased 8.7 folds compared to the same period of the previous year and 80 percent of the recruitment jobs are located in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, according to a report released by online recruitment platform Boss Zhipin. 

As the number of companies releasing blockchain-related recruitment in 2018 reached 5.6 times as many as that of the same months in 2017, the talent supply in such field increased 235 percent year on year, presenting a higher growth rate than that of other fields. 

However, blockchain talents are still in short supply compared with the actual demand. A member staff at a digital assets trading platform told NBD that since the company established the blockchain research team in 2016, the related talents are greatly in need.

According to statistics from Boss Zhipin, 73.7 percent of the blockchain-related positions are technical jobs, including blockchain development engineer, java engineer (blockchain-related) and blockchain software development engineer. Moreover, demands for blockchain-related talents are found in other positions such as product manager, researcher and journalist. 

Liu Dahong, founder of blockchain startup Lingzhu Technology said that technical talents are what a real blockchain enterprise needs the most, before talents for making products and operation. 

The report indicated that 80 percent of the technical positions require job applicants to have more than 3 professional skills, and those who only master skills for commonly used programming languages C++, java and Go may not fulfill the requirements. The development of blockchain technology entails comprehensive professional skills incorporating mathematics, cryptography, point-to-point communication technology and computer programming. 

Many applicants only know skills in one specific area. But the basics of computer science are the same, they will be qualified for the job after proper trainning. Liu noted that the company tends to select and train those who are good at programming. The blockchain is a new thing and most of the people are not familiar with this field. 

The shortage of professional talents also leads to the climbing salary of blockchain-related positions. Liu said to NBD that a person in the position relevant to the blockchain will have higher pay than the one in the same position in other fields. For example, the salary of a postgraduate work in the blockchain industry will reach 1.5 times that of a postgraduate in other industries.

Before November 2017, the average pay of blockchain-related jobs is 23,200 yuan (3,668 U.S. dollars) but after that it rose to 25,800 yuan (4,079 U.S. dollars), according to the report.

Though many enterprises offer climbing pay to attract talents, the flow of talents seems not that high. Liu explained that thoughts and logics that the companies adopt for blockchain technology development may vary from one to another, thus the technicians need long time to develop the new technology. If they leave for another company, they thchnology may not be able to be applied there.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn