Blockchain skills top Freelancer.com’s ‘Fast 50’ list

April 09, 2021

Blockchain technology skills posted the fastest growth in demand, according to Freelancer.com’s “Fast 50” report for the first quarter. The online staffing platform reported the number of blockchain technology jobs on its site rose 59% since the fourth quarter to a total of 2,207 jobs.

Freelancer.com noted the increase in the price of bitcoin and the trend in trading of NFTs (nonfungible tokens) may have driven growth. NFTs are digital files such as art, audio, videos and other creative work, each of which is unique.

Photography jobs also rose by 50%; it was the second-fastest category for job growth.

On the flip side, Microsoft Office skills saw the fastest decline in demand with the number of jobs falling 27% quarter over quarter in the first quarter.

Sydney, Australia-based Freelancer.com noted that 500,000 jobs were posted on its platform during the first quarter and the number of registered users surpassed 51 million.

The Freelancer.com Fast 50 report tracks quarterly movement of the top-50 fastest-growing and declining jobs on the site’s online marketplace.

The fastest-growing jobs on Freelancer.com in Q1 2021 compared to Q4 2020:

Name Job Count Q4 Job Count Q1 2021 % Increase / Decrease
Blockchain                                              1,384         2,207 59.47%
Photography                                              2,866         4,305 50.21%
German                                              2,684         3,859 43.78%
Data Extraction                                              1,044         1,318 26.25%
Blog Writing                                              1,790         2,233 24.75%
French                                              2,388         2,970 24.37%
Local Job                                              1,944         2,390 22.94%
Interior Design                                              2,993         3,597 20.18%
Spanish (Spain)                                              1,236         1,461 18.20%
Vue.js                                              1,593         1,868 17.26%
Building Architecture                                              4,219         4,936 16.99%
Home Design                                              1,335         1,561 16.93%
Transcription                                              2,878         3,351 16.44%
Flutter                                              2,524         2,915 15.49%
Medical Writing                                              1,030         1,182 14.76%
eBooks                                              1,516         1,739 14.71%
Express JS                                              1,254         1,436 14.51%
Full Stack Development                                              1,070         1,225 14.49%
Deep Learning                                              1,146         1,307 14.05%
Book Writing                                              2,450         2,776 13.31%
Customer Support                                              2,143         2,428 13.30%
Videography                                              3,530         3,998 13.26%
3D Rendering                                            10,543       11,773 11.67%
Customer Service                                              1,927         2,151 11.62%
Call Center                                              1,138         1,270 11.60%

The fastest-declining jobs on Freelancer.com in Q1 2021 compared to Q4 2020:

Name Job Count Q4 Job Count Q1 2021 % Increase / Decrease
Microsoft Office                                              4,329         3,160 -27.00%
English Grammar                                              4,560         3,363 -26.25%
English Spelling                                              2,070         1,556 -24.83%
Ionic Framework                                              1,261            961 -23.79%
Cisco                                              1,103            867 -21.40%
Computer Science                                              1,168            926 -20.72%
Word                                            10,205         8,166 -19.98%
Education & Tutoring                                              1,089            889 -18.37%
Proofreading                                              8,475         6,976 -17.69%
R Programming Language                                              1,870         1,541 -17.59%
Copy Typing                                            12,805       10,572 -17.44%
SPSS Statistics                                              1,126            939 -16.61%
Data Processing                                            17,651       14,778 -16.28%
Mathematics                                              5,741         4,807 -16.27%
Editing                                              8,944         7,506 -16.08%
Matlab and Mathematica                                              5,094         4,325 -15.10%
Objective C                                              3,334         2,840 -14.82%
Chemical Engineering                                              1,081            926 -14.34%
Swift                                              2,236         1,921 -14.09%
CSS3                                              1,031            886 -14.06%
Google Firebase                                              1,461         1,258 -13.89%
Algorithm                                              5,676         4,945 -12.88%
Statistics                                              4,397         3,833 -12.83%
Shopify                                              5,559         4,870 -12.39%
Programming                                              1,486         1,304 -12.25%