Data scientist is one of the fastest growing jobs in recent years. It’s an exciting and highly paid career that presents you with tons of opportunities for development. What’s more, there’s still abundance of positions as the supply of qualified data scientists is yet to catch up to the huge business demand.
So what are the skills you need to become a Data scientist in 2021, we’ve been doing this research for three years now, and in this video, we’ll share the top skills that will make you successful in this super competitive field.
In this video, we will focus on the year 2021, our study portrays a data scientist collective image as a male 71%, who is bilingual has been in the workforce for 8.5 years, 3.5 years of which has worked as a data scientist.
1. Programming Skill
He or she works with Python and or R and has a master’s degree. Now let’s focus on what you came here for the data scientist skill set. You can’t become a data scientist without a strong programming skill set, and in 2021 general purpose languages are used more extensively by data scientists than ever before.
According to our own annual research 74% of current data scientists are proficient in Python 56% use R and 51% SQL. To say that Python is popularity is rising would be an understatement.
Python is hands down the preferred language for statistical modeling by data scientists. No wonder ie the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology deemed Python The Big Kahuna of programming languages.
But what do companies want? Well, Python is more than just a fan favorite. In fact, it seems to be very close to dominance in terms of what employers are searching for, as it is the language associated with the highest salaries worldwide.
The demand for Python as a preferred skill by employers is soaring sky high numbers don’t lie 70% of F 500 data scientists employ Python, both Python and R have increased in popularity over the years and 500 companies are reflecting that in their organizations.
Moreover, Python is the number one programming language in numerous industries that use advanced analytics for their business and product development.
2. Knowledge Of sql
What about SQL SQL is popularity is growing fast, and it almost catches up to the runner up are today’s businesses create quintillion bytes of data on a daily basis that makes SQL a super important tool in a data scientist toolbox since it is critical in accessing, updating, inserting, manipulating and modifying large volumes of data.
It also integrates smoothly with other scripting languages like R and Python, besides BI tools such as Tableau and Power BI are heavily dependent on it, thus increasing its adoption. So if you’re looking for great career opportunities across numerous industries,
you literally can’t go wrong with Python, R and SQL. And if you’re a beginner eager to make the first steps in your data scientists career, the only thing left to do is start learning.
3. Knowledge Of different backgrounds
Alright, another interesting finding in 2021 is that fewer data scientists are in their first year on the job 13% compared to previous periods 25% in 2018 and 2019. A few years ago, as data science had just emerged, companies were recruiting professionals with different backgrounds and training them in house.
As a result, in some cases, relatively Junior candidates were hired for senior data scientists roles. Our numbers show that as more people gain experience in the field, first year Data scientist account for a smaller portion of the total.
4. Work experience Skill
The idea that experience plays a bigger role in recruiting is reinforced by the finding that the average data scientist professional in 2021 has been in the workforce for 8.5 years. Therefore, in today’s job market, one needs to accumulate the necessary working experience and an analytical position before they are ready for a data scientist job title.
Maybe a data analyst position works best. But what does the data show? Our study examined data scientists previous job occupation and title one in two jobs ago, two positions prior to their current role,
The average data scientist in our sample was either already a data scientist 29% an analyst 17% or worked in academia 12% the figures change when we look at the positions our cohort occupied immediately before entering their current role.
5. Academic degree
Data Scientist 52% analyst 11% a researcher in academia 8% What about education and the large majority that’s 95 percent of current data scientists have a bachelor’s degree or higher And out of those 53% hold a master’s degree and 26% a PhD,
we can say that a person needs to aim at a second cycle academic degree. However, it is also true that a Bachelor’s can get you the job as long as you have the technical skills and preparation required in general 19 out of 20 data scientists have a university degree.
Cool. How about the area of studies data scientists pursued? Which degrees improve a candidate’s chances of becoming a data scientist considering our study. 55% of the data scientists in the cohort come from one of three University backgrounds data science and analysis 21% computer science 18% and statistics and mathematics 16% there are fewer representatives of economics and social sciences 12%, engineering 11% and natural sciences 11%.
All of these are technical courses that prepare graduates for the quantitative and analytical aspects of the job. Alright, we’ve learned quite a lot. So let’s summarize the most important findings describing the typical data scientist career path in 2021.
Python is undoubtedly the most popular coding language in the field of SQL is gaining ground closing in on our frequently the previous job data scientists had was an analyst position 95% of data scientists have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
A data science, computer science or statistics and mathematics degree gives the best chance for a data scientists career. They say that if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. In this case, things are a bit different.
If you know that you want to become a Data scientist, it will be beneficial to study the career path of others who have taken the data scientist career path and learn from their experience. We hope that this article was useful and we’ll guide you in the right direction if you decide to pursue a data scientist career path.
