Why data science is a must-have skill for professionals today

Technology has advanced so far in the current era that businesses and companies are thinking beyond the traditional ways of marketing. In earlier days, assumptions, references, and predictions played a crucial role in determining every business decisions, transformations, and choices. However, the ultimate results were never satisfactory because they had an unstable base or foundation. It led to many discrepancies, losses, and even a sharp decline in the business reputation.

However, now that technology has evolved, businesses no longer rely on assumptions. Instead, they use data to understand the real-time situations and conditions of the target audience, market, business performance, productivity, employee sustenance, and many other aspects. As a result, they can make well-informed decisions, orchestrate and streamline operations perfectly, and consistently generate value for their business. 

Through the transformation, there is a huge demand for professionals with a data science skill set and knowledge. This technical field collects and analyzes various datasets to provide deeper insights to businesses on myriad aspects.

Data science job market and demand 

Using the textbook definition, data science is a technical, statistical, and mathematical field where professionals extract different datasets from relevant sources. After processing and filtering, they use various qualitative analytical methods to reveal patterns/trends and generate visual insights. All this information is then clubbed into analytical reports and forecasts.

Due to the increasing demand for skilled professionals to handle data, the data science job market is expected to have a valuation of $378.7 billion by 2030. The expected annual growth rate of the market is approximately 16.43%, which is quite high compared to any other technical field. 

Therefore, it’s evident that the market will witness a whooping growth in global revenue, market size, and annual growth. Consequently, businesses expect to employ professionals with top-notch and next-gen skill sets based on these numbers.

Data science skill sets

If you are looking forward to grabbing one of the best data science career opportunities, developing and nurturing a diverse skill set is essential. Data science is based on mathematical, instrumentation, statistical, and computational techniques. However, this field has huge technological support because you require tools or algorithms to collect data from various sources and models to analyze them.

Thus, every professional has to develop a comprehensive list of data science skill sets that will shape their future. This section lists the essential skills you need for a golden future in the data science domain.

1. Database and programming language

You first need to learn about databases, such as SQL, MongoDB, and more. Every single piece of data will be stored in the database, either in structured or unstructured form. Therefore, you must know how to create queries, find schemas and table views, optimize the queries to extract the appropriate datasets, find redundancies and duplicity in the records, and so on. 

You must also understand the programming language to analyze the datasets and derive the expected results. Ideally, Kotlin, Python, and Java are the best languages to begin your career.

2. Mathematics

It would help you to become proficient in mathematics since you need the computational knowledge to build the algorithms for the analytical model. It can be linear algebra, statistics, matrix, calculus, probability distribution, regression, vector models, or dimensionality reduction. These algorithms will determine how the entire data science analytical model will work, how to understand the patterns/trends, extract accurate information, and so on.

3. Data visualization

One of the essential skills required to meet the high data science demand in the market is data visualization. As a professional, you must know how to read various visuals, like charts, graphs, and tables. Once you decode these visuals, you can prepare a complete report on what the datasets are about, the information they hold, and so on.

4. Web scraping

It is a method through which you will extract information already present on the Internet. It can be through a third-party platform or an authorized data library. You have to find the relevant sources for datasets, including but not limited to surveys, feedback forms, polls, and reviews.

5. ML and NLP

Machine learning and natural language processing are combined to form data science analytical models and algorithms. You must leverage these technologies and artificial intelligence for the best data science career opportunities. Until and unless you understand ML and AI concepts, you won’t be able to design models based on data and capable of handling various datasets.

Benefits of developing skills in data science

Below are a few benefits of learning the skills mentioned above as a data science professional.

• If you have the skills developed, you will be able to understand what data science is and implement the knowledge you gain in the real-time world.
• Developing these skills will also help you get a higher salary.
• Since data science has become a competitive market, the competition for professionals will skyrocket in the coming years. Therefore, you must prepare for that explosion and develop your USP, which can be done by developing a data science skill set.

Following are the various technologies and concepts you have to learn.

Data science skills	Things to learn
Programming	Java, Kotlin, Python, SQL, MongoDB, and R programming
Mathematics and calculations	Statistics, permutation and combination, probability, calculus
Advanced technologies	Machine learning and artificial intelligence

How to develop data science skills as a professional?

If you want to develop yourself as a data scientist in terms of skills, it would be best to opt for an online data science course. It can be a diploma, master’s or PG program, or a certificate from a well-recognized institution. Apart from this, you can also gain hands-on experience by attending workshops and training programs online. An internship is also one of the best ways to develop your data science skills and become a strong professional with a versatile portfolio.

Conclusion

The data science job market is vast, and people will have many opportunities. However, to acquire the best opportunity, you must develop an appropriate skill set in technology, mathematics, and statistics. Data science is hard to master, but once you get these skills under your grasp, you can deliver excellent performance and drive innovation for businesses and companies worldwide. To pursue higher education in Data Science, you can check the online programs offered by the prestigious Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE). We provide online postgraduate data science degree and certificate courses at Online Manipal platform for you to learn from your home!

Key takeaways:

1. Data science is a vast market covering multiple verticals, such as data collection, data processing and cleaning, data analytics, and many more.
2. Skill development is essential to become a successful data scientist and implementing the knowledge to solve real-time challenges.
3. Technical skills, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and database knowledge, are required for data science jobs.