Data scientists use software, artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse and interpret large amounts of data.
£32,000 - £82,500
37 to 39 a week (between 8am and 6pm)
You'll need:
You can get into this job through:
You can begin your career in data science by studying for a relevant degree or postgraduate qualification, such as:
Subjects that include a lot of statistics, like physics, engineering or psychology may also be useful.
Graduates of other subjects can do a postgraduate master's conversion course to get into AI and data science.
Funding is also available to encourage people from under-represented groups to come into the profession.
Doing an internship or industry work placement as part of your course can give you an advantage when looking for jobs.
You'll usually need:
You may be able to get into this job through an apprenticeship, for example:
These can take between 2 and 3 years to complete.
You'll usually need:
You could apply directly to companies and organisations if you have the right skills and experience from working with data. You may be able to find roles with:
You could register for a place on the Civil Service Fast Stream scheme to work in data. You'll need a degree, postgraduate award or have completed a degree apprenticeship to apply.
“I enjoyed maths and solving problems at school and went on to do a maths degree.”
“My first graduate job was as a data analyst for the NHS, helping clinicians evaluate their medical interventions.”
“I had the opportunity to move into a data science team which allowed me to upskill in coding, and apply my knowledge to different problems.”
“I’ve worked my way up to principal data scientist, leading teams and helping others learn. It’s an exciting time to be working in artificial intelligence, and this job gives me the flexibility to work part time to look after my young daughter.”
Look out for intensive training courses in computing and data science.
You can also find free computer science and coding courses through The Skills Toolkit.
It will be useful to build up your knowledge of coding, analysis and data manipulation software packages like:
You could join the Institute of Analytics (IoA) or The Royal Statistical Society for training and development opportunities, and to make contacts in the industry.
You can find out more about a career as a data scientist from The Royal Statistical Society and The Chartered Institute for IT.
As a data scientist, you could:
This job could help the environment.
For a data scientist to be a green job, you could:
You could work in an office or remotely.
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