Photography and video-related skills were among the fastest-growing skills in 2023, according to Freelancer.com’s Fast 50 report released on 22 February. The talent platform reported that Adobe Lightroom skills rose 68.9% year over year to 3,841 jobs. Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing tool.

Videography ranked the second fastest-growing skill in 2023, rising 53.7% to 16,885 jobs. In addition, the report found that freelancers in the US are charging up to USD 300 per hour for photography skills and USD 200 per hour for videography and video editing skills.

Freelancer.com noted the demand was fueled by an increase in brands incorporating videos in their marketing strategies.

On the flip side, NFTs (nonfungible tokens) — which are digital files such as art, audio, video and other creative works — saw the fastest decline in 2023, with the number of jobs falling by 87%.

“A boom in video and photography services is a clear indication that there’s a shift towards visual, highly produced content as opposed to reliance on legacy forms of internet marketing, such as a reliance on blog posts and articles to generate traffic,” Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie said in a press statement. “We expect this trend to continue and are already seeing signs of video and marketing categories continuing to increase in 2024.”

Overall, the five fastest-growing freelancer skills on the platform in 2023 compared to 2022 were:

1. Adobe Lightroom, up 68.9% to 3,841 jobs
2. Videography, up 53.7% to 16,885 jobs
3. User interface / IA design, up 50.7% to 12,243 jobs
4. Photography, up 44.8% to 11,719 jobs
5. Administrative support, up 43.7% to 2,916 jobs

Freelancer.com also reported jobs with the fastest-falling demands, the top five of which were:

1. Non-fungible Tokens (NFT), down 87% to 709 jobs
2. Binance smart chain, down 78% to 233 jobs
3. Smart contracts, down 76.4% to 1,106 jobs
4. Solidity, down 74.6% to 1,141 jobs
5. Swedish translator, down 74.1% to 260 jobs

The report is based on data from more than one million projects posted on Freelancer.com’s platform.