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% |
