Here’s why it might be the best time to opt for a career in data analytics

• A recent study by Amazon shows that revenue from analytics in India has touched $102.1 million in 2018.
  
• Data analytics in India is in high demand and offers great salaries too.
  
• Today, India has become a data outsourcing hub, creating more opportunities in the field.
  

With India’s turn to be a digitally forward country, data analytics has seen a great push in the country. From startups to corporates, India inc appears to making a big push into the technology, with many vacancies.

A recent study by Amazon shows that revenue from analytics in India has touched $102.1 million in 2018 and is projected to be $151.5 million in 2019 and $224.6 million in 2020.

Meanwhile, a report done by Analytics Vidhya and ed-tech platform Great Learnings shows that India currently has 50,000 vacancies in data and analytics and will add 39,000 analytics jobs by 2020.

With an upward projected graph, it is not surprising that the industry is also welcoming many job seekers. A career in analytics is at its prime now and has also seen many millennials hop on the bandwagon.

There is humongous digital data getting generated in India with 1.3 billion Indians being on Aadhar database and connected across their bank accounts, taxation records, medical records, communication channels like Whatsapp, believes Siddhartha Ahluwalia, co-founder, Sheroes, a job recruitment platform for women.

“As a country we are just getting started on mining data to get intelligent insights.

Today every company whether digital or offline is marketing to customer online. Therefore every business needs data insights,” said Ahluwalia.

From SMEs to major corporates, every company in the country is shifting towards a consumer-driven approach and is tracking its consumers to know what they want.

“To build these solutions IT firms need not only software engineers but also data science experts. Earlier India used to be Global Software Outsourcing hub. Today India has also become Data outsourcing hub with companies like WNS, MuSigma focussing only data science outsourcing solutions,” said Ahluwalia.


Jobs galore, but not many takers

Job profiles range from ‘data scientist,’ which involve a lot of number crunching, to others that don’t necessarily need your love for numbers, and focus on analysis including roles like quantitative analyst/modeller, business analyst (data) or business analyst (manager/consultant).

“Business analysts' profiles are gaining popularity in India and worldwide and the scope is also expanding due to exponential increase of volume, velocity and variety of data. Top tier companies like IBM, TCS, WIPRO, Infosys, and many others are using business analytics tools to generate intelligent business solutions for making a larger profit,” said Dr. Neena Nanda, Head of Department ( Decision Sciences), ITM Business School, Navi Mumbai.

With high remuneration being offered for these jobs, millennials too are signing up. “Starting from a minimum salary of around seven lakh rupees per annum a good BA professional moves up rapidly and reaches a level of BA manager in a short span of 3-5 years drawing salaries in the range of 50 lakhs per annum. Mostly the jobs involve working with people of high calibre and IQ which makes it more challenging and interesting,” said Dr Nanda.

However, India still sees a scarcity in the number of data scientists emerging from the country. India reportedly has less than 10% of data scientists available globally, according to the professional network LinkedIn. While the US has over 40% skilled professionals in the big data and analytics domain.

See Also:
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