The Covid-19 pandemic caused a seismic shift in the data science domain, as much as it impacted other industries. The global economy fell drastically causing a direct impact on the overall job market. This report, powered by AnalytixLabs, offers a comparative landscape on how the data science and analytics job domain evolved from the pandemic era to the post-pandemic times (i.e.present date).
Impact of Covid-19 on Data Science Job Market
In January 2019, World Bank predicted India’s GDP to grow by 7.5% in the next two years. However, with Covid-19 in the picture in December 2019, the GDP crashed by 23.9%, taking India to its lowest ever GDP. This low reflected steadily in the job sector.
- In June 2020, there was a drop of 11% in the number of job openings while in July 2020, the drop rose to 17%
- In February 2020, the number of job openings was at a peak of 1,09,000 which fell to 82,500 jobs in May 2020
- There was a 47.1% increase in the number of job openings in mid-2021
- Once India started lifting the lockdown, the data science landscape once again moved north, picking up pace at a 67% increase in job openings
- By end of the second week of April, India reported the second-highest number of jobs at 179470 job openings
What led to this drastic rebound for India?
Every aspect of the world was becoming contactless – the most prominent one being payments and transactions. Even the smallest vendor started using UPI-based payment apps like Google Pay, PayTM, and PhonePe.
Covid-19 also paved way for a rise in online shopping. Thanks to the internet penetration to tier 1,2, and 3 cities, online transactions increased manifold times. Major brands started focusing more on online consumer experiences. This led to the generation of a huge amount of data.
Companies, obviously, needed professionals to handle this data and make sense of it. As the world was undergoing a seismic shift in the way they shopped and transactions were done, it was important to understand consumer behavior more than ever.
Salary Trends for Data Science Job Roles in India
Tier 2 represents early startups, domestic financial institutions, and third-party consultancies.
Key findings:
- In Tier 1, the average median salary for beginners increased by a whopping 33% from 2019 to 2022. In Tier 2, the same range saw a 28.57% increase in the average salary.
- For more experienced professionals, the salary bracket in Tier 2 went down by 3.76% from 2019 to 2022. In Tier 1, the salary for highly experienced professionals increased by only 3.2%, the least among all experience brackets.
- Maximum increase in salary is for less experienced professionals.
- The overall increase in salary brackets is better in Tier 1 companies than the Tier 2.
Salary Trends:
- Salary increment of 20-25% noticed when switching jobs in the same industry for similar functions in 2019.
- Salary increment for data science roles in 2022 remained between 20-30%.
- In general, surveys show men earn more in data science job roles than their counterparts
Data Science Jobs by Sector
Covid-19 caused major shifts in various sectors, the most prominent being eCommerce and pharmaceuticals. These are the two industries that faced maximum upheaval in the pandemic era. While eCommerce kept on rising high, thanks to the shift in how consumers shopped, pharmaceutical companies saw a major rush during the pandemic .
Key highlights:
- eCommerce saw a major increase in the number of jobs for data science since 2018. Covid-19 pushed brands to online selling because of the huge shift in the way consumers shopped. This also led to new eCommerce ventures rising up steadily, leading to the need for skilled data professionals.
- The BFSI sector saw a dip in the number of job openings from 2018 to 2022. The highest was in 2018. After that, there has been a major dip while the consistency fairly remained for the last two years.
- Retail and CPG saw growth in the number of jobs, recording 11% job openings until August 2022.
- Covid-19 caused major competition in the pharma and healthcare industry as the sector faced the maximum demand ever during this time. In 2020, just after covid had hit the world, data science jobs rose to 16.3% in 2022 from 12% in 2019. However, as lockdowns were lifted and life started to get back to normalcy, the number dipped to 7.4% in August 2022.
Data Science Jobs by Cities
Key findings:
- Bangalore continues to rule as the top city in India for data science jobs . This is because Bangalore is home to a maximum number of analytics startups that have reportedly received the highest amount of funding in the last three consecutive years. Add to this, a majority of companies run their technology, IT, and Boutique analytics in this city, making Bangalore a hub for data scientists.
- Next in line is the capital of India. Delhi NCR closely follows suit. However, there has been a dip since 2018 indicating a change in the choice of location for aspiring data scientists. However, Delhi still has a high number of data science job openings. In 2021, there were 26,339 jobs while in 2022, there were 34,200 jobs. This increase in share is facilitated by the fact that people are now returning to work at a faster rate in Delhi than in other cities.
- Mumbai stands third with a 28.68% increase in the number of jobs from 2021 to 2022. This increase is facilitated by the high demand in the BFSI sector in Mumbai.
- Hyderabad saw a 42.9% growth from 2021 to 2022 owing to cheaper workspace, skilled workforce, large tech businesses, and maximum initiative in AI developments.
Data Science Job Predictions: Looking beyond 2022
- Data Science job openings will increase to 7,00,000 in 2022 alone.
- Data Science job postings are open for 45 days which is 5 days more than other job roles.
- There will be 11.5 million jobs around the world by 2026.
Endnotes: Where to Start Learning Data Science?
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Download your free copy of the latest Data Science Salary Report containing:
- Salary trends for various data science roles and comparison between 2019 and 2022
- Salary trends based on skills and tools
- Salary trends across cities in India
- Skills and tools to learn
- Domain-specific salary trends; and more.
