There’s a shortage of data scientists, and IBM is doing something about it.The shortage is not a secret. As data science has gone mainstream, and as the cloud, augmented and machine learning are becoming more critical to and organization’s success, more and more companies are seeking to hire data scientists in order to build models to harness the vast amounts of data they now possess and ultimately glean insights from that data.
However, with demand on the rise, the number of qualified data scientists has not kept pace.
Little more than a year ago, there were more than 151,000 unfilled openings for data scientists at the time, according to the August 2018 LinkedIn Workforce Report.
In an attempt to address the shortage of data scientists, in January of 2019 IBM revealed that it was partnering with The Open Group, a consortium that aims to develop industry standards and has more than 600 members, to create a data scientist certification program.
While IBM offers certification, it’s not the only company offering training in data science. Certification, however, takes not only the training to a more official level, but also validates it.
“As the profession grows and matures, there are capabilities just being put into place,” Fleming said. “Certification is one, but also how to work with the academic community to continue to grow, the salary structure – how to communicate the value the profession brings to business organizations. We’re in the early stages of framing the profession.”
And also in the early stages of trying to tackle the shortage of data scientists.
