Information technology and multilingual professionals in China received whopping pay rises this year and the trend is likely to continue next year, a leading recruitment consultancy said on Wednesday.

According to the survey conducted by Robert Walters, a global headhunter, it has noticed several changes in the salary structure of professionals this year, with bilingual talents, multi-skilled financial workers and IT employees being the biggest beneficiaries.

Shen Jia, senior manager of Robert Walters, said "three and a half" industries have seen the biggest salary growth in the past 11 months, namely finance, real estate and internet, while life science counts as half.

"The financial industry has a growing demand for talents with multiple skills, as the entire industrial chain in China needs employees proficient in computer skills," said Shen. "The demand is the highest in the emerging financial technology business as it requires employees on the technical side to understand the business and business managers to know internet."

"Fintech industry is in urgent need of talents with website development capabilities and financial background," said Meng Tian, vice secretary of the Association of Shanghai Internet Finance Industry. "Fintech has two sides, technology and finance, thereby posing higher requirements for employees."

The average salary for finance and accounting professionals has risen by 10 to 20 percent, while those in the IT industry earned 12 percent to 18 percent more than last year, said the Robert Walters report.

"Life science counts as a half-industry because it does not have a large market share yet," said Shen, adding that "it is an incremental market and it has been growing fast."

The salary for those in environment, health and safety sectors increased by 15 to 20 percent.

The report said that next year, the most needed skills would be multilingual ability, knowledge of international business, automation and artificial intelligence, change management, e-commerce, digital marketing and cybersecurity.

"More and more companies are investing abroad, for example, and some gaming companies are shifting their focus from home to countries and regions involved in Belt and Road Initiative, such as Middle East," said Shen.

"In the past, there were energy companies going to the Middle East, but now there are more trading companies and other businesses, including internet entertainment," he added. "It requires workers with Arabic language skills."

He said understanding the language alone was not enough as the requirement would be for workers who understand the local laws and culture.

"A major reason why some of the recent outbound deals have failed is the lack of knowledge about local politics, laws and culture," said Gu Yeli, a professor with the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

"Language will play a bridging role. By learning a new language, we can understand the politics, economy and culture of another country, and thus help formulate China's strategy on overseas development," he added.