5 Lucrative Careers That Require Data Analysis Skills With digital technology rapidly becoming more ingrained into our everyday lives, every action taken by a user today is a data point for businesses.
By Mike Upchurch •
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As the ongoing digital revolution continues to redefine the way organisations approach business intelligence and go-to-market strategies, data has emerged as an extremely valuable commodity for the global economy, and with good reason. With digital technology rapidly becoming more ingrained into our everyday lives, every action taken by a user today is a data point for businesses.
From checking into a restaurant with friends to daily commute patterns, each and every aspect of our digitally-empowered lives is raw data which can be leveraged by enterprises to refine their business strategies and make them more synergistic with the requirements of their end-consumer.
This rapid growth for data has also led to a concomitant growth in demand for professionals skilled in data analytics. Companies, both big and small, are competing in the employment market in order to bring skilled data professionals on board, while many organisations have even commenced in-house training of data professionals from within their own talent pools to address their data analytics requirements.
As a result of these developments, professionals in the sector are today commanding some of the highest salaries in the IT industry. Here are five high-paying jobs which highlight why having data analysis skills can really give your career a big boost:
Data Scientist
Industry estimates, at present, peg the amount of data generated across the globe on a daily basis to be around 2.5 quintillion bytes. Given the speed at which digital adoption is increasing, the data generation rate is expected to touch a massive 50,000 gigabytes per second by 2018. All this raw data needs to be processed and refined appropriately in order to derive relevant business insights.
This is where a data scientist comes into the picture. By creating tools and methodologies such as predictive models and algorithms that can crunch through these massive sets of data, data scientists can help businesses in analysing their business data and even recommend ways to apply the findings into their operations.
Data scientists also assist with tracking data, identifying prevalent and future market trends, and making recommendations that add value to a business. Professionals with an insightful, inquisitive and analytical mindset are most suited for the role, which can see them command salaries upwards of $115,000 on average.
Data Analyst
The main task of a data analyst is to collect, process and statistically analyse a given data set.The objective is to extract meaningful insights that can help organisations in identifying solutions to business problems. While the skill-set required for a data analyst is often not as technical as that of a data scientist, the average salary for the job role can still exceed $62,000 and can also touch three-figure remuneration.
Business Analyst
While data analysts and scientists analyse external data, a business analyst is in charge of analysing internal business processes in order to identify ways of improving productivity, resource management and output. The job responsibility often entails building and analysing entire financial and business models in order to identify opportunities for improvement.
A similar job profile is that of a business systems analyst. Professionals hired in the position are required to have a sound technical knowledge in order to guide companies in refining their technical frameworks. They can either propose improvements on the current infrastructure or suggest integrations with new technical solutions in order to optimise business functions. The average salary for a Business Analyst often falls within the bracket of $65,000 and $90,000.
Product Manager
A product manager owns the product right from the conception. As such, the role requires data analytics skills that help define every stage of the product development cycle, right from its conception. Market trends and gaps need to be analysed when the product is conceptualised, while the development cycle requires a product manager to conduct an in-depth analysis of user data in order to determine the most relevant improvements for the next version. Given the highly specialized role that a Product Manager plays, the job can command an average salary upwards of $111,000.
Digital Marketer
In a day and age where everything is rapidly migrating onto a digital medium, professionals with marketing skills specific to the domain are in demand. And while the areas of expertise might range from email marketing to SEO to social media, digital marketing strategies and insights need to be driven by data in order to derive the maximum impact and return on investment. Digital marketers can expect their remunerations to be to the tune of $60,000, but experienced marketers often draw salaries as high as $100,000.
