Data Science, The Exciting Career Pathway

It is absolutely true that data has immense potential to lead to positive change in people’s lives. In business, data is a great resource for driving smart decisions and changes. The analysis of Data has immense potential for increasing revenue, profits, customer satisfaction and competitive advantages for modern organisations.

Data is a precious asset of any organization. It helps businesses enhance their processes and operations, thereby saving time and money with increased efficiency in operation. However, Data is meaningless until its conversion into valuable information. Data scientists are analytical experts who extract meaning from and interpret data to solve complex problems.

Domain Expertise

Data science is a field of study that combines domain expertise, programming skills, and knowledge of mathematics and statistics to extract meaningful insights from data. Data science practitioners apply machine learning algorithms to numbers, text, images, video, audio, and more to produce artificial intelligence (AI) systems to perform tasks that ordinarily require human intelligence. In turn, these systems generate insights which analysts and business users can translate into tangible business value. Data Science is widely used in various industry domains, including marketing, healthcare, agriculture, finance, banking, transport, manufacturing, policy work, and more. The importance of Data Science lies in its innumerable uses that range from daily activities like asking for recommendations to more complex applications like operating a self-driving car.

Data science is an essential part of many industries today, given the massive amounts of data that are produced. Its popularity has grown over the years, and companies have started implementing data science techniques to grow their business. It is a progressive, exciting and relatively undersubscribed career pathway. With the arrival of ‘big data’ there is a growing need for data scientists. You can work across multiple sectors from finance and e-commerce to retail, medicine or transport.

Data Science is still growing

The accelerating volume of data sources, and subsequently data, has made data science one of the fastest growing fields across every industry. Data scientist was dubbed the “sexiest job of the 21st century” by Harvard Business Review. Organizations are increasingly reliant on them to interpret data and provide actionable recommendations to improve business outcomes.

For four years in a row, data scientist has been named the number one job in the U.S. by Glassdoor. What’s more, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the demand for data science skills will drive a 27.9 percent rise in employment in the field through 2026. Not only is there a huge demand, but there is also a noticeable shortage of qualified data scientists.

Demand for Data Scientist

Data scientists are a new growing breed of professionals, highly in demand today. This demand happened due to the sudden need to find brains who could wrangle with data and help make discoveries and ultimately empower organizations to make data-driven decisions. More and more companies are coming to realize the importance of data science, AI, and machine learning. Regardless of industry or size, organizations that wish to remain competitive in the age of big data need to efficiently develop and implement data science capabilities or risk being left behind.

Top career in Data Science 

Data science experts are needed in virtually every job sector. In order to break into these high-paying, in-demand roles, an advanced education is generally required. Here are some of the leading data science careers you can break into

1. Data Scientist

Typical Job Requirements: Data scientists analyze large amounts of complex raw and processed information to find patterns that will develop organizations and help steer vital business decisions.

2. Machine Learning Engineer

Typical Job Requirements: They create data funnels and work on software solutions. They often require strong statistics and programming skills and software engineering knowledge.

3. Data Architect

Typical Job Requirements: They create new database systems, develop ways of improving the performance and functionality of existing systems and provide access to database administrators and analysts.

4. Data Engineer

Typical Job Requirements: Data engineers build and maintain data pipelines which make information accessible for data scientists. They also perform batch or real-time processing on gathered and stored data.

5. Business Intelligence(BI) developer

Typical Job Requirements: BI developers design and develop methods to enable business users to find the necessary information to make better business decisions.

6. Statistician

Typical Job Requirements: Statisticians work to collect, analyse and interpret data to enable them to identify trends and relationships that can be used to inform organisational decision making.

7. Data Analyst

Typical Job Requirements: Data analysts transform and manipulate large data sets to suit the desired analysis of companies. They also aid in the decision-making process.

Educational Requirements

Data scientists typically have a background in mathematics, statistics or other numerate subjects such as computer science or engineering and have an understanding of computer programming and programming languages. Almost all positions require a Bachelor’s degree, that is relevant but not necessarily computer science based. For a postgraduate qualification, a range of universities offer Master’s degrees in courses such as MSc Data Science and Analytics, MSc Business Analytics or MSc Big Data Technologies.

Final word

Data has become an indispensable part of the 21st Century with our society witnessing rapid digitalization in the last couple of years. Every organization, in fact, every industry requires the talents of data scientists. Organizations need to stay competitive in the age of Big Data, building and executing data science skills quickly, or risking being left behind. Data Science is here to stay and it will remain in demand and yes, it is a great field to venture into. Dive into the exciting world of data science, get trained by expert instructors and professional. Click here to get started.