For Unreal Engine is it essential to learn C++ or will Blueprints do if you are good at them? What is an employer looking for in an employee? Do they expect them to ONLY know C++ coding and NOT use blueprints at all?

Thanks!

We have had a recent discussion about that some time ago. TL;DR using Blueprint is a good option to perform quick prototyping and for designers and non-coding people to support development on small and non critical systems. You can of course create an entire game in Blueprint, but it'll lack of performance if that is a criteria.

C++ is essential, at least for a coding position! Blueprint by itself is transpiled into C++ code from the UBT (Unreal Build Tools) and then compiled in the usual workflow of building the game. However, a code generator is never as good as a programmer because it doesn't know about tricks, perks and optimizations an experienced programmer can do. So to write a good game, you should know your tools and the language!

Employers don't look for Blueprint designers, they look for Unreal C++ Developers because those people are not limited to the engine itself but can also do optimizations, write tools and support other projects once the game is shipped and patches come to an end

use both ;

this should give you a better idea:

have fun ?