TheEuropean Union aims to lead the development and applications of blockchain by supporting and guiding different blockchain stakeholders through appropriate policies, legal and regulatory framework and funding. As blockchain is an advanced form of technology, it requires specific expertise and experience in its development and applications. As blockchain technology becomes more adoptable, it puts pressure on the current EU labour market to meet the demand for blockchain skills.
While blockchain technologies have so far been mainly used around cryptocurrencies, there has been a rapid expansion of its application in other important areas such as finance and banking, supply chain management and health technology. Therefore, the demand for blockchain skills is likely to increase as technology continues to grow and adoption spreads across sectors. This report aims to estimate the anticipated demand for blockchain skills as well as the supply of blockchain skills to provide evidence and address skills mismatches in this area.
Firstly, a major concern is the lack of information about the current size of the blockchain labour market or the number of people working on blockchain development or applications in the EU. Chaise therefore estimates that there were around 2021 blockchain workers in the EU-26 in 361,767. This is equivalent to around 0.2 % of total employment in the EU-26 in 2021. Related occupations, in general, are:
- Software and application developer and analyst;
- Professional database and network;
- Head of Information and Communication Technology Services;
- Director of Business and Administration Services;
- Professional legal professions.
The main issues of skills policy planning for any emerging technology are the following:
- little is known about the type of jobs for which skills are sought;
- technology-related jobs were not linked to the official professional framework that is used for forecasting purposes;
- the occupational distribution of skills is likely to become rapidly outdated as the emerging technology is adopted across the full range of sectors and business activities that expand.
In response to these challenges, this EU-funded Chaise project report presents a single methodological framework that estimates the current demand for blockchain skills through the use of data scrapping technologies. The Chaise Party has located blockchain related jobs in the occupational classification and prepared forecasts for both blockchain professionals and new qualified Blockchain graduates for the period 2021-2026.
As part of the Chaise Forecast Framework, further information was gathered on sectoral developments, education and training provision, as well as trends in economic, societal and employment development. Industry experts from the Chaise consortium expect the sector to grow further in the future and there is increased interest in blockchain activities and applications across different sectors and governments. Interviews with education and training providers suggest that the provision of blockchain education and training is likely to improve, given the sectoral and industrial demand for skills in blockchain technology and the growing public interest. Information on economic, societal and employment trends indicates that the rapid expansion of new digital technologies across Europe will increase demand for digital skills and increased high-tech activity.