The most sought-after Data profiles

In a survey conducted by Kantar and ESSEC Business School from March 25th to April 21st 2021, entitled "The future of data-related jobs as seen by major French groups", 29% of digital business managers and human resources managers of large companies put business and data-related skills at the top of the list of "major issues related to the evolution of data-related jobs in the years to come".

Which skills related to data and artificial intelligence will they really need?

Professionals generally come from engineering schools or have followed scientific programs in universities. New jobs have been created to "grapple" with Big Data; here are the 9 jobs that will be the most in demand, their main skills and specificities.

Data Analyst

The Data Analyst will be the most sought-after profile. Their technical skills are versatile and extend to programming languages. They also have a great appetite for statistics. They select data, integrate it, develop dashboards and automate queries.

Data Engineer

The Data Engineer defines technical solutions in an infrastructure defined by the Data Architect. They maintain the technical applications, integrate the data while ensuring its quality, and monitor the flows.

Data Scientist

The term is widely used although the profiles are sometimes very different. They automate processing with intelligent algorithms. Experts in mathematics they are also able to model image or language recognition. If some people sometimes wonder about the future of the Data Scientist job these professionals have their best days ahead of them.

Data Architect

The Data Architect organizes the management of raw data optimizing the flows. They can suggest changes to the model. They design the data architecture, ensure the consistency of the data model and maintain the data dictionary.

Chief Data Officer

The Chief Data Officer (CDO) is the director of the data strategy. They set up an appropriate and secure framework for the company's decision makers. To this effect they choose the Business Intelligence platforms and software and the Artificial Intelligence solutions in synergy with the CIO and the business lines.

Data Protection Officer

The Data Protection Officer (DPO) is in charge of data governance and particularly data protection. He is responsible for the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Machine Learning Engineer

This job is often confused with Data Scientist. It is the Machine Learning Engineer who will implement learning models. Their skills are multiple ranging from statistics and mathematics to computer languages including modeling and security.

Database Administrator

The Database Administrator (DBA) is not a new actor. They manage databases from their implementation to their operation including their parameterization and optimization. Rigorous and organized, they have also been able to adapt to new architectures.

Data Steward

As a pillar of Data Governance, the Data Steward is responsible for the data’s life cycle. Their excellent interpersonal skills enable them to collect the definition of the data in order to improve the treatment processes thanks to communication with the other Data Management players.

Some of these profiles can be reached with an HEC degree. Data Analyst and Data Steward for example. Or with several years of experience, Chief Data Officer and Data Protection Officer. Other profiles are definitely too technical and require other training.

Article co-authored with Laurent Bocquet