By Hannah Evans “By 2018, the United States will experience a shortage of 190,000 skilled data scientists and 1.5 million managers and analysts capable of reaping actionable insights from the big data deluge.” (McKinsey) The ‘data scientist’: an increasingly valuable, yet rare breed of individual, indispensable to any organisation of the 21st century in order to remain competitive. And yet what exactly is a ‘data scientist’? What skills are required to reap the aforementioned “actionable insights” from the abundance of “big data”? In collaboration with our customers, Mango Solutions has drawn upon industry expertise to establish 6 core attributes of the contemporary ‘data scientist’: Communicator, Visualiser, Modeller, Programmer, Technologist and Data Wrangler. To measure these skillsets, we have been developing the Data Science Radar; a conceptual framework that allows users to explore these character traits in more detail, to uncover their own data science profile type. An individual with high scores in all 6 character traits is an extremely unique breed of data scientist indeed – the metaphorical ‘unicorn’. Chief Data Scientist at Mango Solutions, Rich Pugh premiered this concept using a ‘Shiny’ web app to audiences at our annual EARL (Effective Applications of the R Language) conferences in Boston and London this quarter. Rich emphasised how essential the tool has become internally at Mango – “Data science is a broad and multi-faceted domain; as a team of data scientists, it is critical that our skillsets as a group are just as diverse – to match the ever changing boundaries of the unique field we operate in. The Data Science Radar allows us to do just that.” It provides a visual map of the skillsets within a data science facility – on an individual level, it can be used to understand personal strengths and potential areas for improvement. On an enterprise level, the Data Science Radar could be used to help team leaders in the following ways: 1. As a visual aid to support data scientist recruitment requirements – to highlight where there are gaps in the skillset of an existing team and to identify the skillsets of potential new recruits. 2. To help shape bespoke data science training courses for teams by objectively identifying training requirements of your existing staff. 3. To monitor learning during any long-term data science training programme. Watch this space…the first iteration of the Data Science Radar is due to launch online in the next couple of weeks- you will be able to create your own radar via the Mango Solutions website, determine your own profile and share on social media @DSradar #DSradar. Get following for updates on our progress. How far away will your unicorn be? In the meantime, why not get in touch to see how Mango Solutions can use the Data Science Radar to help you meet your data science requirements? Telephone: +44 (0)1249 705 450 Email: [email protected]