Though there seems to be a slight slowdown in hiring in the tech market, there is one digital skill that multiple surveys suggest is the most in demand — data analytics. A LinkedIn search for data analyst jobs showed up more than 15,700 openings as of the afternoon of August 5.
“Data is the new oil and everything we do today consumes data. This data can be represented as information and then be leveraged as insights to aid better decision-making,” said Vijay Sivaram, CEO, Quess IT Staffing. According to him, in the days to, every organisation must ensure that their data structures and data lakes are in place and so they must have the right resources to enable this.
In a recent hiring trends report by Quess, data analytics topped the list of five digital skills that are in top demand. It also featured in the list of top three skills that recruiters at IT companies are looking for as per a TeamLease report titled ‘Uncovering Digital Talent in Emerging Locations’.
Most recently, finds of a survey by edtech platform Imarticus Learning suggests that 70 percent of young professionals aim to upskill themselves with new-age digital skills and courses in finance and data science — an umbrella term for a group of fields that are used to mine large datasets — are the most sought after.
Why is there massive demand for data analysts?
Neeti Sharma, president and co-founder at TeamLease EdTech Limited, says data analysis helps organisations predict market behaviour, understand the strengths and weaknesses of their competition and also helps optimise overall business strategy. Big data analytics is also useful in predicting customer behavior and understanding what drives them, she said.
“Given the surge in the requirement for data analytics, the demand for talent in this domain has also gone up. Our recent report indicates that data analytics roles are likely to see 6-10 percent growth in the coming year, whereas data science roles are expected to see 4-6 percent growth,” she told CNBCTV18.com.
Are there enough data analysts available in the job market?
According to Sharma, the rise of big data has brought about an urgent need for qualified data analysts. The role is also in top demand due to the fact that qualified candidates are rare. With the emergence of the metaverse, the impact and role of data analytics becomes even more important.
Parag Ghatpande, Director, Human Capital Solutions, India, Aon pointed out that India has 103 unicorns and that 50-plus early-stage organisations are poised to become unicorns in the next two years. These early stage organisations are attracting the top talent in digital and data skills leading to the war for talent, he said.
This war for digital talent is continuing with 27 percent average attrition for niche skills leading to the highest demand-supply gap occurring across cloud development, full stack development, cloud architecture and data analytics skills.
Can freshers get data analyst jobs and how can one learn the skills?
Data analysts roles are not just limited to the private sector, there are several public sector employers that are looking to employ data analysts as well.
Organisations are designing a framework to assess the current skill gap and further deploying targeted learning interventions for specific talent to up-skill and deploy on projects requiring the skills to be demonstrated for success, accordiing to Aon’s Ghatpande.
He explained that in the field of data analytics, key job roles include data analyst, business analyst, big data architect and decision scientist. These require knowledge of statistical hypothesis testing, statistics, chi-square test, correlation/regression analysis, classification & clustering and neural networks.
The roles and job opportunities are largely entry to mid-level experience range and freshers can look to learn these digital skills and take up internship projects in firms across different sectors, he said.
Meanwhile, Quess IT Staffing's Sivaram said most engineering curricula now include an introductory course on data analytics, giving freshers a foundation level understanding of the domain. Technical skills for specific tools may be acquired through advanced college curriculum, self-learning sessions or corporate training programmes, he said.
On upskilling, he said most data analytics tools offer their own virtual courses take professionals can take up. There is also a multitude of online platforms like 3ai, MOOCs and offline centres that offer skilling programmes in the data analytics domain, he added.
TeamLease EdTech co-founder Sharma also highlighted that apart from the IT sector, where approximately 43 percent of data analysts are employed, data analysts are also in demand in retail and commerce, BFSI, government, and banking and finance sectors.
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