A whopping 2.7 Zettabytes of Data exists in the world today, which is projected to grow to 180 Zettabytes by 2025. The amount of data being produced every day is increasing and there's no stopping it.
Only recently, humans have realized the potential this data carries and photos uploaded, texts written, or finances grown are all now placed under the microscope of Big Data, being examined and analyzed for some valuable information.
Organizations are on the lookout for professionals who can help them make something out of their data so that they can drive their marketing and sales better, conduct research and studies better, and develop products and services better.
If you are one of the many people who have a hard time deciding which career path suits them, or rather what is the difference between these three- Data Science, Big Data, and Data Analytics, then you need to read further.
We discuss here the differences in the three fields concerning Data, the skills one needs to pursue each and the potential salaries that come with each prospect.
- Data Science – This field of work concerns itself with the preparing, cleansing, and analyzing data in both structured and unstructured formats. Data Scientists essentially combine mathematics, statistics, problem-solving skills, and data capturing skills, programming, and the eye to view things in a different light. For 2016, an article in Forbes had dubbed “Data Scientist” as the Best Job to Pursue. And its value has only risen through these two years. An interesting statistic reveals that about 88 percent of Data Scientists have a Master's Degree while 46 percent have a Ph.D. The skills data scientists need to be successful in the careers- and get the projected salary by Salary.com of $120,000- include-
- An in-depth knowledge of either or both of SAS and R (generally preferred for Data Science).
- Python programming knowledge along with Java, C++, Perl.
- A huge plus for the field is the knowledge of Hadoop and Hive or Pig. An analysis by CrowdFlower conducted on 3490 LinkedIn jobs for Data Scientists ranked Hadoop as the second most important skill with almost 50 percent rating.
- SQL and Database knowledge.
- Big Data – According to NIST, Big Data consists of datasets that have primary characteristics of volume, velocity, variety, and variability, and that require a scalable architecture for manipulation, efficient storage, and analysis. It is Big Data analytics that helps organizations find insights and make better business decisions. Big Data is expected to land you in a job with a salary of $102,000, according to Glassdoor, for these skills-
- Creativity to build new methods of analyzing and churning data.
- Mathematics and good old number crunching.
- Computer science and the skill of coming up with algorithms that can process data and derive insights.
- Business knowledge, that is, a comprehensive understanding of the objectives of analyzing data for a business.
- Data Analytics – According to Forbes, the Big Data analytics market will cross the $200 billion line soon. Data Analytics is essentially the examination of raw data to find patterns and draw conclusions upon them after the application of a mathematical algorithm over the data and ultimately derive useful insights. If you have a logical and a statistics-oriented mind, this is the job for you! Geoffrey Moore has quoted that without Big Data Analytics, organizations are blind and deaf, wandering into the Web like a deer on the freeway. These skills can land you in a job paying $55,000 per year, according to Salary.com-
- Programming languages like R and Python are the core of Data Analytics.
- Knowledge of Inferential statistics, descriptive statistics, and experimental designs is a must.
- Machine Learning and Data Visualization skills will be imperative too.
- The ability to make raw data easily understandable by converting it into another format.
With these starking differences, it is easy to say that the line that demarcates the three job prospects is a thin one, but is very much there!
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