5 Data Science jobs

As more organisations across sectors awaken to the far-reaching benefits of having skilled data professionals on board, the demand is projected to grow by 28 per cent by 2026

Enterprises across sectors -- ranging from automobiles, defence, logistics and banking to agriculture, healthcare, food and beverage and more -- have realised the ability to leverage data generated by their users to influence a wide range of desirable outcomes, in turn, fuelling the Data Science boom.

Organisations are relying on a data-first practice to remain relevant and competitive in modern times. But a lack of data literacy can seriously slow down business growth.

With disruption becoming more than a buzzword, there's a need for data scientists who can actually wrangle data, create models out of it, and back business decisions at a higher level. By 2025, Asia is estimated to have 170 zettabytes (1 zettabyte is 1 trillion gigabytes) of data, of which, enterprises will contribute 60%. Clearly, data is revolutionising the way enterprises operate. As more organisations across sectors awaken to the far-reaching benefits of having skilled data professionals on board, the demand is projected to grow by 28% by 2026. Here are the top five Data Science roles in demand across industries today:

Data Analyst

Professionals who are experts in data analytics are in high demand as organisations are looking for methods to harness the power of Big Data. Data Analyst is all about collecting, cleaning and interpreting data in order to provide a solution to any problems. For instance, healthcare organisations use data analytics to provide insight into clinical data, higher-quality care and improve patient outcomes. Based on the data, they are able to significantly reduce the number of patient hospitalisations and ER visits.

These professionals evaluate, optimise, and improve business strategies for organisations and outsmart its competition using data analytics. In order to become a Data Analyst, a candidate needs to have some of these top skills such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Microsoft Excel, critical thinking, Python-Statistical Programming, data visualisation, presentation skills and Machine Learning to name a few.

Average salary in India for a Data Analyst ranges between ₹3.3 lakh at the entry-level to ₹11 lakh for a senior professional where the average annual salary for an experienced professional is ₹20 lakh.

Data Scientist

Business leaders are paying heed to the value that data scientists bring to organisations. From extracting insights from large amounts of data generated to communicating and demonstrating the value of the organisation's data, data scientists look for trends and patterns to facilitate improved decision-making processes across the enterprise.

These professionals also make projections to predict future needs using predictive analytics.

Businesses can leverage insights from data to direct their strategy and attract new customers. Some of the technical skills required to become a data scientist are statistical analysis and computing, machine learning, deep learning, processing large data sets, data visualization, data wrangling, mathematics, programming, statistics and big data among others.