The days’ of landing your dream job and working your way up within a single organisation over 30-40 years is an experience of past generations. Graduates and most commonly Millennials are routinely chasing new external opportunities to find their dream job throughout their careers, and It’s predicted that Millennials will have nine jobs in a lifetime.
As shown in our latest salary guide, analysts want flexibility in their roles and are willing to search for it. The salary guide shows particularly within Data Science that 62% had only been in a role for between 0-2 years, following the trend we saw, that those who change roles receive higher pay over time, with the Harnham Data Science team commenting “As data-driven transactional companies continue to compete for the same talent, we can only predict salaries will continue to rise.”
This trend could be evident because of candidate shortage, and those who are open to changing jobs more frequently will, in theory, gain broader experience and deeper skill sets across a wider range of verticals, which makes their acquired knowledge extremely valuable in a growing market.
The Global Skills Issue
We not only see this in the UK but our US Data Science consultant Allister Duncan noted in his article detailing the battle that exists for skilled data scientists; that he spotted a trend amongst those from traditional backgrounds falter as they attempt to transition towards modern Data Science roles, because they have to utilise unfamiliar technology and packages - verses those in the market who are comfortable with the idea of changing roles more frequently benefiting from increased control over career growth, direction and education through exposure.
The idea of a job for life may no longer exist as global consumer attitudes, demands and technology evolve. To effectively manage this and retain the skilled analysts a business has, and for job seekers to not become perennial job hoppers, the answer may be to strike a balance between up-skilling existing analysts who can grow new teams or face losing talented analysts who seek the opportunity to be developed within or companies.
Currently, it is evident that this idea is not implemented deep enough within some companies, as the feedback we received from the data and analytics market shows that 12% of analysts left their roles in 2015 due to a lack of training offered.
With that said, the exciting thing about data and analytics is that it is a globally growing discipline, and there is time for the market to settle, and time for those wanting to be a part of it, to gather the required skills needed to be active participants. Universities globally are creating market-centric data and analytics course to plug skill gaps as well as develop analysts for the future in response.
Tell us what you look for in a company when you are looking for a new role. What are your thoughts on the market trends that you see? Are your drivers similar to what our salary guide has picked up, or are their other factors at play?
