We are nearing the end of this year and soon a lot of students will be completing their college education. For them, choosing the right career path is one of the biggest dilemmas. There are many who will guide them with their own experience like IT is booming, cybersecurity is trending, AI is the future, and all that. Yes, that’s true. All these are future-proof jobs. And among them, the data science career stands out and in this article, we will tell you why. Though Data Science was coined in the 1960s, it got traction in the late 1980s when there was the development of advanced machine learning and statistical techniques. And within the past decade, the advancement in the internet has completely transformed the data science industry.
Job Outlook in the Data Science Industry
If we look at the job outlook in a data science career, this path is quite promising. In the 2000s, industries started leveraging Big Data to enhance their business operations. The use of data science revolutionized data-driven decision-making and gave incredible results. The trend started by large companies is followed by startups and small companies as well.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the data science market value was US $112 in the last year and it will be growing at a CAGR of 15.89% and reach a market value of US $279 in the next 5 years. And in terms of employment, the demand for data science professionals is expected to grow at 28% by 2030, states the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Another important factor for choosing any career path is salary. The data science professionals get handsome take-home salaries for their skills and expertise and the contribution they make in taking their organization forward. According to Glassdoor, data scientists get an average annual salary of $152,251. Meta pays the highest salary to data scientists standing at $2, 47,842 /yr. Even beginners in this career can expect to earn anywhere between $88,000 and $120,000.
What is data science?
Well, the job outlook of the data science career path looks amazing, isn’t it? But what actually is data science? To understand in brief, every tap, swipe or scroll we do on the internet generates data. Every transaction we make, every ad we see, and every product we browse and Wishlist contributes to the generation of data. Similarly, there are thousands and thousands of categories of data generated every second. These data are properly collected, filtered, and analyzed to draw insights that help businesses enhance their operations, design targeted marketing campaigns, enhance customer experience, and so on.
This entire process from generating data to drawing insights constitutes the technology called data science. Every step requires different data science skills to perform the tasks efficiently. And thus data science career path includes several job roles that you can consider to start your career in.
What are the different job roles in a data science career?
There are different types of job profiles available in data science careers. Some of the popular job roles are:
- Data scientists
- Data analyst
- Data Engineer
- Business analyst
- Data architect and
- Business intelligence Developer
Each of these data science jobs requires a unique set of skills and is responsible for performing different kinds of jobs.
What does it take to become a data science professional?
So, now that you understand what a data science career is and what different job profiles are, you must also know what it takes to become a successful data science professional. From generating and collecting data to visualizing and communicating results to stakeholders, data science has a lot of tasks to do and they require certain data science skills to perform them. Here is a list of some must-have skills you must learn:
- Web scraping
- Programming languages – Python, SQL, R, C++, etc.
- Data Visualization
- Communication and collaboration skills
- Mathematics and statistics
- Have business, industry, and domain knowledge
The data science industry is constantly changing. So you must be ready to upgrade yourself regularly with the latest tools and technologies.
Certified Data Science Professional (CDSP™) at a glance
We saw the important skills required to become an efficient data science professional. But where do you get these data science skills to learn? The United States Data Science Institute (USDSI®) offers one of the best certification programs in data science for beginners – the Certified Data Science Professional (CDSP™). This self-paced online learning program covers the basics as well as the latest topics in data science to start your career in this domain.
The course covers necessary topics in data science in its 8 strategically designed modules and provides real-world practice codes so that students can practice what they learn. Once they are ready, they can schedule an exam at their preferred date and time. The CDSP™ exam consists of 60 questions that have to be completed within 100 minutes. The students must score 70% and above to successfully clear the exam and earn the shareable badge as well. If students fail in the first attempt, they second a second free attempt. But failing that will attract $150 each for further attempts.
This is a highly credible certification that will help you with data science skills to learn. And you must grab this to start and advance in your data science career.
Conclusion
To sum up the entire discussion, data science is a booming industry. With the amount of data generated getting larger and larger, businesses are in dire need of skilled data science professionals. So, if you are confused about which career to choose after completing your education in 2024, then we highly recommend considering the incredible data science career path.