At K&C, we regularly recruit blockchain developers and whole Web3 development teams from Eastern Europe for clients based in Europe and the USA. Talent recruitment is arguably the single greatest challenge in the blockchain space.
A significant part of that challenge is cost – blockchain developer salaries and rates are notably higher than those of traditional web and app developers. Intense competition for a limited pool of experienced Web3 developers means salaries are high globally – but geography, where blockchain developers live, does still make a difference.
Based on our direct market experience recruiting for blockchain development roles, the average salaries senior Web3 developers expect to earn around the world can be very roughly outlined as:
Europe – €12,000-€15,000 a month or €144,000-€180,000 p.a.
USA – $18,000-$20,000 a month of $216,000-$240,000 p.a.
India – $7000-$8000 a month or $84,000-$96,000 p.a.
*The final cost for the direct employer will vary depending on tax regimes, social security and pension contributions etc. In Germany, a rough rule of thumb to reach the gross cost is salary x1.3. That would mean a total annual cost for employing a senior blockchain developer at around €234,000.
Source: Tokenized
Our everyday market experience recruiting predominantly senior blockchain developers approximately corresponds to the data in this infographic put together by the smart contracts platform Tokenized.
In the rest of the article, I’ll compare our direct experience recruiting for blockchain roles to the most popular publicly available developer salary data points around the world.
I’ll also address common questions around blockchain recruitment such as why hiring for blockchain tech stacks is so expensive, future trends (will costs come down?) and the most common tech stacks.
Blockchain developer recruitment is difficult – but a lot easier if you are armed with knowledge
Recruiting for blockchain development projects can be difficult. Several of our clients from Europe and the U.S. have turned to us for blockchain development services or staffing support after struggling in-house.
Despite the noise and hype over the last several years, blockchain is still a nascent technology. But its unique qualities and advantages make it an increasingly popular choice. Startups and established companies around the world are developing and planning blockchain projects for use cases they see the technology as an ideal fit for.
As a result, demand for software developers with blockchain and Web3 tech stacks is growing. And it is growing faster than the pool of developers and other specialists with blockchain tech stacks and significant commercial project experience.
Good developers are in short supply across even established commercial development stacks. But the imbalance between demand and supply is especially acute when it comes to the Web3 space.
None of this means that you can’t successfully recruit blockchain developers.
But you do have to be aware that salary and rate ranges are significantly higher than for other more established web development stacks. Recruitment can also be more difficult, especially if you hope to do so locally for office-based or hybrid positions. As well as high costs, there is likely to be intense competition.
Remote blockchain development teams distributed internationally are an increasingly popular solution.
Blockchain developer rates
If your strategic decision is to contract blockchain developers through an IT outsourcing company instead of hiring directly, you can expect to cover the cost of the individual’s salary and any related taxes plus a gross margin of between 20% and 30%.
If you, or your IT outsourcing partner, recruit from popular international markets such as Eastern Europe, total costs are still usually meaningfully lower than they would be with direct employees – social security costs and other taxes are typically much lower internationally.
You will also avoid recruitment expenses such as fees paid to a recruitment partner and can scale the IT specialists available to work on your projects up and down with the cycles, avoiding paying significant salaries during periods workload is lower.
Other advantages include avoiding the administrative headache of dealing with international payroll and potentially expensive mistakes recruiting in a market you are not familiar with.
Why are blockchain developer salaries so high?
A combination of several factors makes it expensive to recruit developers with Web3 tech stacks and experience.
- The demand-to-supply deficit of senior blockchain developers is especially acute – even in the context of the broader tech talent gap.
- The technology is still comparatively new and there are far fewer blockchain projects than traditional web and cloud development equivalents – that means fewer experienced developers.
- A lot of new blockchain projects are being launched which means that while the pipeline of talent is growing quickly, demand is running ahead of that growth.
- Senior blockchain developers have all the usual skills and experience of their web dev peers and they have upskilled to add a new, in-demand stack.
- Blockchain startups are usually well-funded and spend a good chunk of their funding on the arms race for the shallow pool of developers with blockchain tech stacks and domain experience – that’s resulted in particularly high salary inflation.
Blockchain project sponsors are incentivised to absorb higher salary costs for scarce senior talent because an experienced team can make a huge difference to ongoing costs – particularly “gas” costs.
Gas, paid for in the native crypto of smart contract platforms like Ethereum, is the cost of using the computing power of a blockchain platform. It is roughly comparable to cloud computing costs and can be similarly optimised. Experienced blockchain developers will optimise the use of smart contracts for gas efficiency, potentially saving huge sums over the lifetime of a dApp.
Average blockchain developer salary ranges around the world – job sites data
Some job boards and sites provide average salary data for specific roles as a benchmark for employers and job seekers. The methodologies behind these salary data points vary but are typically based on either ranges published in job ads on a particular platform or salary surveys completed by users.
In our experience, the accuracy of this kind of salary data varies. It is usually most accurate (based on our direct market experience) for larger markets (like the USA) and when the role in question is a common one – because the figures are based on a meaningful data set.
It is important to understand that these average salary figures are extremely general and do not take into account variables such as specific skills and experience required or preferred. They can also be biased towards the lower or higher ends of a range if the data sources relied on are themselves biased.
For example, the relatively large number of more junior software development roles based in India tend to skew average salary stats towards the lower end of ranges. The potential employer of an experienced senior developer from India might then be surprised by salary expectations that are closer to other international markets than anticipated.
As a general rule, the more senior the role being recruited for – the less significant the divergence in salary expectations across international tech talent markets. That is the case across all major software development tech stacks but especially so in the blockchain/Web3 space.
Blockchain developer salary range in Germany
There is a relatively limited data set available but the figures available on de.talent.com of a salary of €10,000 to €15,000 euro a month, or €120,000 to €180,000 a year, for senior blockchain developers based in Germany matches our direct experience.
A compromise is a senior developer in a more mainstream web development stack with some blockchain/Web3 development experience. Depending on the project, there is often enough work with Web2 technologies to leverage this category of developer’s core experience and expertise.
However, they should still be capable enough with Web3 technologies to contribute meaningfully to the other work, under the supervision of colleagues with deeper blockchain expertise.
The salary range of a mid to advanced blockchain developer, with a senior web development profile, is usually a modest premium on the cost of a senior Web2 developer – somewhere between €6000 and €8000 a month.
Source: de.talent.com
Blockchain developer salary range in Switzerland
Average web developer salaries in Switzerland are typically significantly higher than comparable roles in Germany. However, blockchain developer salaries are an exception and are relatively similar – the lack of available talent has pushed costs up everywhere, which means the usual “Swiss premium” is not so obvious.
Senior blockchain developers in Switzerland earn between 140,000 CHF (€147,000) and 170,000 CHF (€178,000).
Source: SwissDevJobs
Blockchain developer salary range in the United Kingdom
Based on a data set of 896 salaries, the jobs site uk.talent.com puts the average UK salary for a blockchain developer at £70,000 a year or £5883 a month. That rises to £90,000 a year or £7500 a month at the top end of the range.
Source: uk.talent.com
Live job offers on the site such as those shown here are in line with that range. Salary data on uk.talent.com for Solidity developers, able to programme smart contracts on the Ethereum platform, shows a higher top end of the salary range – up to £120,000 a year or £10,000 a month.
However, based on our experience, these salaries are lower than should be realistically expected for senior blockchain developers based in the UK.
Blockchain developer salary range in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a popular IT outsourcing destination for companies from higher salary economies in Western Europe and North America. While the gap between salary ranges in the region, especially for more senior software development roles, and those in higher salary economies has contracted significantly in recent years, it still exists.
Most East European nations also have much lower taxes than in more developed economies, meaning the overall costs to hire or contract IT specialists from the region are lower than the difference in average salary ranges might suggest.
It is also important to note that the region covered by the catch-all term “Eastern Europe”, is both broad and diverse. It is often used to refer to the entirety of the former USSR and Warsaw Pact signatories – a territory that stretches from the former East Germany to the caucuses and Central Asia.
Relatively mature tech talent markets like Poland and the Czech Republic have much more in common with neighbouring Western European markets like Germany and Austria than they do with, for example, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.
Here we’ll focus on the two largest single markets in the often unhelpfully broad ‘Eastern Europe’ category – Poland and Ukraine. These are also the two markets we have most experience recruiting blockchain developers from – though developers with Web3 tech stacks and experience can also be found elsewhere in the wider region (sometimes at a discount).
Blockchain developer salary range in Poland
The Polish edition of the jobs board Jooble put the average blockchain developer salary in the country at PLN28,724 ($6600) a month or PLN344,688 ($79,204) a year.
Source: pl.jooble.org
That is roughly in line with our experience, with senior developers with significant commercial project experience at the top end of the range earning up to double those average figures.
Blockchain developer salary expectations in other EU markets in Eastern Europe like Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria are similar to those in Poland.
Blockchain developer salary range in Ukraine
Ukraine continues to prove itself a popular market for software development talent despite Russia’s invasion. Ukraine’s IT services market has proven itself to be incredibly robust and companies that rely on Ukrainian software developers report almost no interruption to service resulting from the war.
We have the same experience at K&C. While our physical Kyiv office has been suspended since early 2022, our Ukrainian team continues to work uninterrupted from various locations across the country. In total, we have lost just 2% of billable hours (from our team members based in Ukraine) as a result of the war.
Reliability is ensured through a combination of developers relocating to safer regions of the country, backup satellite internet connections and power generators.
We understand that not all organisations currently recruit tech talent based in Ukraine – but we guarantee if yours does, you will be happy with the decision. Not only has reliability now been demonstrated over almost 2 years – the motivation levels of Ukrainian specialists are off the charts.
Data from Ukrainian tech jobs board Djinni.co indicates average monthly salaries of $4000-$5000 for blockchain developers, or $48,000 to $60,000 a year. Monthly salaries are shown to rise to $7000+ a month or $84,000+ a year at the top end of the range.
Source: djinni.co
Blockchain developer salary range in India
Data on blockchain developer salary ranges in India published on popular jobs boards including Glassdoor, in.talent.com and Payscale is misleading. Talent.com, for example, puts the average blockchain developer salary in India at ₹1,035,000 ($12,422) a year or around $1200 a month.
The top end of the scale, purportedly based on data from 444 salaries, is given as ₹2,500,000 ($30,060) or ₹208,333 ($2500) a month.
Source: in.talent.com
The reality is quite different. Our market experience suggests salary expectations of $7000-$8000 a month for senior blockchain developers from India with significant project experience.
Our experience lines up with various studies by sources such as KnowledgeHut and InterviewBit that quote real blockchain developer job ads published in India that have published salary ranges.
Blockchain developer salary range in the USA
Tech salaries are typically higher in the USA than almost anywhere else in the world and blockchain developer salaries follow that pattern – if anything the gap to other markets is even greater because Web3 talent is at such a premium.
Data from the jobs board talent.com based on 887 salaries puts the average blockchain developer salary in the USA at $146,250 a year, or $12,188 a month – rising to $185,000 a year or $15,390 a month.
Source: talent.com
That is, based on our direct market experience, lower than realistic – at least for senior blockchain developers. That’s a reality backed up by live job ads on the site offering salary ranges of $200,000-$250,000 year or $16,700-$21,000 a month.
Will blockchain developer salaries come down as more developers learn Web3 skills?
If the talent supply-to-demand balance is one of the most influential factors behind high blockchain developer salaries, could a new influx of talent rebalance the market?
A recent study on the blockchain development market as part of the annual State of the Developer Nation report suggests that while only 9% of developers have worked on Web3 projects – another 16% are currently learning the technologies behind it.
Source: Developer Nation
In theory, that could mean a future easing in salary levels if the talent supply pipeline grows faster than new demand. However, the number of blockchain development projects is also increasing – a trend expected to accelerate as we move out of the current (2023) economic downturn.
In the medium to longer term, a market correction would be expected to occur if demand for blockchain developers remains high. However, if and when that happens is difficult to predict – and not something that can practically influence blockchain recruitment needs and considerations in the shorter term.
If you need to recruit blockchain development talent today – the reality is you should be prepared to pay significantly more than would be the case for mainstream web and application development projects. However, you can still optimise on costs and minimise hiring mistakes with the right partner – get in touch, we’d be delighted to help!