The global demand for blockchain engineers is up by 517% in the last year, according to a report released by recruitment company Hired.

In a survey of 98,000 developers, Hired assessed the kinds of software engineering jobs that are most in demand and the top average salaries for careers in several major technology markets including London, New York, Paris, and San Francisco.

Second highest-paid specialisation

The number one slot this year in terms of highest average salary went to “search engineers”. Interestingly, blockchain engineering is the second highest-paid software engineering specialisation in New York and London and the first in Paris. The average salary that blockchain engineers receive is $105,400.

The blockchain engineer role also consistently stayed among the top three highest-paid software engineering jobs in the various cities covered in the report.

The document also notes that the second fastest-growing software engineering role is security engineer, with 132% growth year-on-year.

High average salaries in the Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area is the location with the highest salaries, with a $155,000 payout to software engineers on average, while Paris comes in last, with blockchain engineer salaries averaging around $67,000.

Even though we have seen the crypto markets tumble in price and public interest over the past 12 months, it seems as though the market for blockchain engineers is higher than it has ever been. Part of this can, of course, be attributed to the rush of ICO money into the space (and a limited pool of adequate engineering talent).

As the number of sensible and cash-flow-positive ventures continues to increase in this space, so will the requirement for engineers of a blockchain discipline to be ready to maintain and innovate on top of this new and growing plethora of distributed networks.

I am not sure if the growth will be as sharp next year, but you may see blockchain engineers climb to the top of the software engineer salary leaderboard.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.