In this blog post
A future driven by data scientists
New technologies and new conversations – every piece of it is crucial as it generates big data. And big data is critically responsible for creating innovative value, consequently giving leeway to megatrends. Big data has transformed the overall perspective of technology and its impact on mankind is massive. To propel digital revolution with big data, enterprises displayed a need for skilled data scientists, who can do justice to the usage of big data in business. The sudden upsurge in the requirement for data scientists took the global market by storm, displaying signs of disruption. The disruption altered the process compelling organizations to rely on data-driven insights and thus imparting training to relevant employees was crucial to run the show seamlessly.
Data and Digital Revolution: A correlation
The world has witnessed technological diversity and the unprecedented volume of data generated in due course did increase clearly out of proportion. This has compelled companies to act proactively. The overflow of such data resulted due to customer explosion, a rise in business partners and unfathomable internal records. Secondary research suggests that by 2020, the pool of unstructured data will further increase due to a steep rise in smart connected devices. This forced companies to dedicate a specific budget and a team of skilled professionals to deal with such data and adopt proactive analytical measures to ensure the organization’s success. Embracing the digital revolution was the only breather to survive the cut-throat competition.
Who will help? Of course, Data scientists!
Data science is the new order of the day and thus data scientists are more in vogue. Research data suggests that approximately 50,000 data science and machine learning jobs have emerged in the market in the very recent past. The growing need for companies to develop intuitive platform solutions, self-service data visualizations, analytical and reporting tools led to mounting dependence on data scientists, who helped bridge the gap between programming and implementation.
The Department of Statistics in the US points out that data scientists ought to be proficient in mathematics, statistics, and programming and in another year their demand is expected to soar high by 40% based on the current requirements. Recently, the demand for data scientists in India have also exploded beyond manageable limits. Compared to the market demand, the number of data science professionals grew only by a meagre 19%, indicating its huge potential in the market.
The job hype: Key drivers
External data sources reveal that the demand for data scientists will increase by 28% by 2020. IT, professional services, insurance, and finance are the few domains that will witness a demand peak for data scientists. 2019 has already seen a rise in the demand for data science and analytics (DSA) jobs by 59%. The key factors that contributed to this rising demand include:
- Need for data-driven decision making
- Need for functional analysis
- Need for data analysis
Predicting trends for data scientists by 2020
What is that X-factor in this profession?
Currently, the most lucrative analytical skills in the market are MapReduce, Big data, Apache Pig, Machine Learning, Hive, and Hadoop. It is indeed rewarding as data scientists trained with aforesaid skills are usually the highest paid in the industry. Market data on the average salary of individuals with data science skills are cited below:
Skill sets are evolving, and cutting-edge skills, in reality, are giving enterprises a new direction. This disruption is a challenge for enterprises, owing to the exorbitant costs of resources and impending unknown risks. Despite these allied challenges, enterprises are still recruiting, training and integrating data scientists into their existing business processes. Since data science is widely adopted by companies across all industry types hence, the demand for data science professionals has been massive. However, as the existing number of data scientists is quite limited compared to the whopping demand, thus, the value for this profile has heightened beyond imagination. It was further observed that data scientists approximately earn $118,000 per year.
Coping with the rising demand
Secondary market research dived deep to discover that 43% of organizations across the world lacks appropriate skills to handle data science. On the other hand, only 5% of organizations could change their legacy approach so far, to attract data scientists. Also, the growing scarcity of data scientists compelled enterprises to train their existing resources to meet such expectations. Formal in-house training along with the integration of new talent and traditional data workers worked well with few organizations. Data sources confirm that approximately 63% of the organizations are garnering this approach and the advantage in training employees is that, they are already aware of the business and its mode of operation. However, amidst all of the pieces of training, organizations are yet to analyze the importance of analytical insights into business actions.
Successful implementation of data science
Imbibing data science without a well-designed support system and guidance can yield negative results. Thus, it is essential to train the traditional data workers to merge with the new skills to derive something positive from it. Few organizations also created a set of new roles and responsibilities to cater to the process of merging. This also resulted in an alteration of organizational structure to meet the prerequisite of infusing data science skills in the system. An analytical translator is best poised to possess data science and analytical skills to give an enterprise the maximum advantage. This will enhance the scope of quantitative as well as qualitative analysis.
The success of data scientists is more a function of teamwork rather than just individual contribution. Hence, it demands a perfect blend of varied skills, expertise, and experience. People from different disciplines and educational backgrounds can be part of the data science revolution. According to a report generated by LinkedIn, through extensive study of member profiles, job openings, and salaries, there has been a 56% increase in job vacancies across the US for the position of the data scientists. Even Glassdoor backed the claim, confirming that in the last three years the demand for data scientists has considerably gone up.
Driving towards a better future
The potential has been already unleashed. Data-driven business decisions have taken center-stage. As a result, enterprises are investing in the latest technologies to stay ahead in the competition and predict the future better. Clearly now, data scientists are considered as a new class of innovators with excellent business acumen and technical expertise. The data science technology will evolve every passing year, opening up more scope for rigorous investment in data science. Everyone now wants to revolutionize the thought of the future and become the force behind the change.
