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Data Scientist Report Final PDF

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16 views8 pages

Data Scientist Report Final PDF

Uploaded by

ananyaraolob
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Data Scientist: A Hot

Job That Pays Well

Labor Market Insights

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Author
Andrew Flowers
Economist
[email protected]

Press Contact
Saskia Heller
Corporate Communications Manager, DACH
+49 211 54060932
[email protected]

About Indeed

Indeed is the #1 job site in the world and allows job


seekers to search millions of jobs on the web or mobile in
over 60 countries and 28 languages (according to total visits
worldwide, source: comScore). More than 250 million
people each month search for jobs, post resumes, and
research companies on Indeed, and Indeed is the #1 source
of external hires for thousands of companies (according to
monthly unique visitors worldwide, source: Google
Analytics, September 2018).

For more information, visit indeed.com.

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Back in 2012, the Harvard Business Review called data
scientist “the sexiest job of the 21st Century.” Six years later,
the data scientist job has only grown sexier. More employers
than ever are looking to hire these skilled digital data jockeys.
And, while interest from job seekers is growing, job postings
are growing even faster, Indeed research shows. There may
not be enough skilled applicants, so bargaining power in this
explosively growing field likely remains with job seekers.

Job postings statistics tell the


story
Data scientist postings as a share of all postings on Indeed jumped a full
31% in December 2018, compared with the same period the year before.
Yet, that was just another solid year in the spectacular and steady rise in
data science jobs on Indeed. Since December 2013, postings have
rocketed 256%—more than tripling.

Why is this job growing like gangbusters? It’s because employers use
data scientists to solve all sorts of problems. In essence, data scientists
are tasked to take raw data and use programming, visualization, and
statistical modeling to extract insights, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS).

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At the same time postings have surged, job searches for data science
positions have grown more slowly. Data science searches as a share of all
searches rose almost 14% in 2018—a healthy gain, but far less than the
rise in postings.

4
Data science job searches follow something of a seasonal pattern. In
2017 and 2018, they peaked in February and March. This might reflect an
influx of students searching for internships and/or soon-to-be graduates
looking for their first job. Data science jobs have been hyped for at least
six years now and college students majoring in computer science are on
the rise.

What do we know about data scientists? They typically are fluent in one
or more programming languages used for statistical analysis, according
to the recruiting agency Burtch Works. Languages such as Python and R
are data scientist favorites, according to Kaggle, a platform for data
science competitions. But they also use a slew of other technical tools
like Hive, BigQuery, AWS, Spark, and Hadoop, among others. Many data
scientists got their formal education in such disciplines as computer
science, statistics, or one of the quantitative social sciences. Nearly all
data scientists have some training in statistical modeling and machine
learning, as well as programming. In essence, the data scientist job mixes
rigorous theory and the software craft.

Houston, San Francisco offer best


salaries for data scientists
The typical data scientist earns a high salary, with Houston, Texas and
San Francisco, California coming in as the top cities in pay. In affordable
Houston, the average data scientist salary was about $138,000 in 2018,
which translates into about $123,000 after adjusting for the cost of living.
The nominal salary in the ultra-expensive San Francisco area averaged a
hefty $167,000, but that equaled a little over $121,000 when living costs
are considered, less than Houston in real terms.

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Methodology

Job postings on Indeed.com with “data” and either “science” or


“scientist” in the job title were calculated as a share of all postings from
December 1, 2016 to January 1, 2019. Searches were identified by having
any version of “data science” or “data scientist” in the search query.

Data scientist salaries were grouped by Metropolitan Statistical Area


(MSA) according to the location of the posting and averaged. Only metro
areas with at least 50 qualifying data scientist job postings in 2018 are
included. The local cost-of-living adjustment was calculated using US
Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities for 2016, released in
May 2018. This cost-of-living data reflects local differences in the price of
housing, other services, and physical goods. The local cost-of-living
adjustment was calculated using US Bureau of Economic Analysis regional
price parities for 2016, released in May 2018, using the implicit regional
price deflator from Table 4.

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About the Author

Andrew Flowers is an Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab,


focusing on the US labor market. Previously he was the
quantitative editor and economics writer at FiveThirtyEight,
Nate Silver’s data-driven news site; and before that, he was
an economic analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of
Atlanta. As a freelance journalist, he has written for The
Economist. He has a B.A. in economics from the University
of Chicago.

Visit us on www.hiringlab.org.

All content © Indeed Inc. 2019

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