The Demand and Salary Of A Data Scientist

Data, Data Generated Everywhere

Mind-Blowing  Statistics

The amount of data that is generated every day is mind-boggling. There was an article on Forbes by Bernard Marr that blew my mind. Here are some excerpts. For the full article, go to Link

 

There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day. Over the last two years alone 90 percent of the data in the world was generated.

On average, Google now processes more than 40,000 searches EVERY second (3.5 billion searches per day)!

Every minute of the day:

Snapchat users share 527,760 photos

More than 120 professionals join LinkedIn

Users watch 4,146,600 YouTube videos

456,000 tweets are sent on Twitter

Instagram users post 46,740 photos

With 2 billion active users Facebook is still the largest social media platform.

Here are some more intriguing Facebook statistics:

1.5 billion people are active on Facebook daily

Europe has more than 307 million people on Facebook

There are five new Facebook profiles created every second!

More than 300 million photos get uploaded per day

Every minute there are 510,000 comments posted and 293,000 statuses updated (on Facebook)

And all this data was gathered 21st May, last year!

 

So I decided to do a more up to date survey. The data below was from an article written on 25th Jan 2019, given at the following link:

 

By 2020, the accumulated volume of big data will increase from 4.4 zettabytes to roughly 44 zettabytes or 44 trillion GB.

Originally, data scientists maintained that the volume of data would double every two years thus reaching the 40 ZB point by 2020. That number was later bumped to 44ZB when the impact of IoT was brought into consideration.

The rate at which data is created is increased exponentially. For instance, 40,000 search queries are performed per second (on Google alone), which makes it 3.46 million searches per day and 1.2 trillion every year.

Every minute Facebook users send roughly 31.25 million messages and watch 2.77 million videos.

The data gathered is no more text-only. An exponential growth in videos and photos is equally prominent. On YouTube alone, 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions (including both B2B and B2C) via the internet will reach up to 450 billion per day.

Globally, the number of smartphone users will grow to 6.1 billion by 2020 (this will overtake the number of basic fixed phone subscriptions).

In just 5 years the number of smart connected devices in the world will be more than 50 billion – all of which will create data that can be shared, collected and analyzed.

Photo by Fancycrave on UnsplashSo what does that mean for us, as data scientists?

Data = raw information. Information = processed data.

Theoretically, inside every 100 MB of the 44,000,000,000,000,000 GB  available in the world, today produced as data there lies a possible business-sector disrupting insight!

But who has the skills to look through 44 trillion GB of data?

The answer: Data Scientists! With Creativity and Originality in their Out-of-the-Box Thinking, as well as Disciplined Focus. 

Here is a description estimating the salaries for data scientists followed by a graphic which shows you why data science is so hyped right now:

From Quora

Answer by Vidita Mehta

Salary Trends in Data Analytics

Freshers in Analytics get paid more than then any other field, they can be paid up-to 6-7 Lakhs per annum (LPA) minus any experience, 3-7 years experienced professional can expect around 10-11 LPA and anyone with more than 7-10 years can expect, 20-30 LPA.

Opportunities in tier 2 cities can be higher, but the pay-scale of Tier 1 cities is much higher.

E-commerce is the most rewarding career with great pay-scale especially for Fresher’s, offering close to 7-8 LPA, while Analytics service provider offers the lowest packages, 6 LPA.

It is advised to combine your skills to attract better packages, skills such as SAS, R Python, or any open source tools, offers around 13 LPA.

Machine Learning is the new entrant in analytics field, attracting better packages when compared to the skills of big data, however for a significant leverage, acquiring the skill sets of both Big Data and Machine Learning will fetch you a starting salary of around 13 LPA.

Combination of knowledge and skills makes you unique in the job market and hence attracts high pay packages.

Picking up the top five tools of big data analytics, like R, Python, SAS, Tableau, Spark along with popular Machine Learning Algorithms, NoSQL Databases, Data Visualization, will make you irresistible for any talent hunter, where you can demand a high pay package.

As a professional, you can upscale your salary by upskilling in the analytics field.

So there is no doubt about the demand or the need for data scientists in the 21st century.

Now we have done a survey for India. but what about the USA?

The following data is an excerpt from an article by IBM< which tells the story much better than I ever could:

From: Forbes magazine

 

Jobs requiring machine learning skills are paying an average of $114,000.

Advertised data scientist jobs pay an average of $105,000 and advertised data engineering jobs pay an average of $117,000.59% of all Data Science and Analytics (DSA) job demand is in Finance and Insurance, Professional Services, and IT.

Annual demand for the fast-growing new roles of data scientist, data developers, and data engineers will reach nearly 700,000 openings by 2020.

By 2020, the number of jobs for all US data professionals will increase by 364,000 openings to 2,720,000 according to IBM.

Data Science and Analytics (DSA) jobs remain open an average of 45 days, five days longer than the market average.

And yet still more! Look below:

• Machine learning, big data, and data science skills are the most challenging to recruit for and potentially can create the greatest disruption to ongoing product development and go-to-market strategies if not filled.

So where does Dimensionless Technologies, with courses in Python, R, Deep Learning, NLP, Big Data, Analytics, and AWS coming soon, stand in the middle of all the demand?

The answer: right in the epicentre of the data science earthquake that is no hitting our IT sector harder than ever.The main reason I say this is because of the salaries increasing like your tummy after you finish your fifth Domino’s Dominator Cheese and Pepperoni Pizza in a row everyday for seven days! Have a look at the salaries for data science:

In India

From Quora

Do you know which city in India pays highest salaries to data scientist?

Mumbai pays the highest salary in India around 12.19L p.a.

Report of Data Analytics Salary of the Top Companies in India

• Accenture’s Data Analytics Salary in India: 90% gets a salary of about Rs 980,000 per year
• Tata Consultancy Services Limited Data Analytics Salary in India: 90% of the employees get a salary of about Rs 550,000 per year. A bonus of Rs 20,000 is paid to the employees.
• EY (Ernst & Young) Data Analytics Salary in India: 75% of the employees get a salary of Rs 620,000 and 90% of the employees get a salary of Rs 770,000.
• HCL Technologies Ltd. Data Analytics Salary in India: 90% of the people are paid Rs 940,000 per year approximately.

 

In the USA

 

To convert into INR, in the US, the salaries of a data scientist stack up as follows:

Lowest: 86,000 USD = 6,020,000 INR per year (60 lakh per year)

Average: 117,00 USD = 8,190,000 INR per year (81 lakh  per year)

Highest: 157,000 USD = 10,990,000 INR per year(109 lakh per year or approximately one crore)

at the exchange rate of 70 INR = 1 USD.

By now you should be able to understand why everyone is running after data science degrees and data science certifications everywhere.

The only other industry that offers similar salaries is cloud computing.

A Personal View

On my own personal behalf, I often wondered – why does everyone talk about following your passion and not just about the money. The literature everywhere advertises“Follow your heart and it will lead you to the land of your dreams”. But then I realized – passion is more than your dreams. A dream, if it does not serve others in some way, is of no inspirational value. That is when I found the fundamental role – focus on others achieving their hearts desires, and you will automatically discover your passion. I have many interests, and I found my happiness doing research in advanced data science and quantum computing and dynamical systems, focusing on experiments that combine all three of them together as a single unified theory. I found that that was my dream. But, however, I have a family and I need to serve them. I need to earn.

Thus I relegated my dreams of research to a part-time level and focused fully on earning for my extended family, and serving them as best as I can. Maybe you will come to your own epiphany moment yourself reading this article. What do you want to do with your life? Personally, I wish to improve the lives of those around me, especially the poor and the malnourished. That feeds my heart. Hence my career decision – invest wisely in the choices that I make to garner maximum benefit for those around me. And work on my research papers in the free time that I get.

So my hope for you today is: having read this article, understand the rich potential that lies before you if you can complete your journey as a data scientist. The only reason that I am not going into data science myself is that I am 34 years old and no longer in the prime of my life to follow this American dream. Hence I found my niche in my interest in research. And further, I realized that a fundamental ‘quantum leap’ would be made if my efforts were to succeed. But as for you, the reader of this article, you may be inspired or your world-view expanded by reading this article and the data contained within. My advice to you is: follow your heart. It knows you best and will not betray you into any false location. Data science is the future for the world. make no mistake about that. And – from whatever inspiration you have received go forward boldly and take action. Take one day at a time. Don’t look at the final goal. Take one day at a time. If you can do that, you will definitely achieve your goals.

Finding Your Passion

Many times when you’re sure you’ve discovered your passion and you run into a difficult topic, that leaves you stuck, you are prone to the famous impostor syndrome. “Maybe this is too much for me. Maybe this is too difficult for me. Maybe this is not my passion. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be this hard for me.” My dear friend, this will hit you. At one point or the other. At such moments, what I do, based upon lessons from the following course, which I highly recommend to every human being on the planet, is:  Take a break. Do something different that completely removes the mind from your current work. Be completely immersed in something else. Or take a nap. Or – best of all – go for a run or a cycle. Exercise. Workout.  This gives your brain cells rest and allows them to process the data in the background. When you come back to your topic, fresh, completely free of worry and tension, completely recharged, you will have an insight into the problem for you that completely solves it. Guaranteed. For more information, I highly suggest the following two resources:

 

 or the most popular MOOC of all time, based on the same topic: Coursera

 

 

This should be your action every time you feel stuck. I have completely finished this MOOC and the book and it has given me the confidence to tackle any subject in the world, including quantum mechanics, topology, string theory, and supersymmetry theory. I strongly recommend this resource (from experience).

Conclusion

So Dimensionless Technologies (link given above) is your entry point to all things data science. Before you go to TensorFlow, Hadoop, Keras, Hive, Pig, MapReduce, BigQuery, BigTable, you need to know the following topics first:  

Python and R – the A, B, C, D, E, F, and G of data science!

Big Data and Analytics – this is what we talked about in this post!

Deep Learning – the X, Y, and Z of data science today!

For further reading, I strongly recommend the following blog posts:

and:

All the best. Your passion is not just a feeling. It is a choice you make the day in and a day out whether you like it or not. That is the definition of character – to do what must be done even if you don’t feel like it. Internalize this advice, and there will be no limits to how high you can go. All the best!