Role of Citizen Data Scientist in Today's Business

If you've been paying attention, you're aware that Big Data is a major topic. You've probably also heard about the data scientist shortage, as well as IBM's projection that demand for data scientists will increase by 28% by 2020. That deficit is problematic since the amount of data we're dealing with grows exponentially with each passing day, and the job of a data scientist with an advanced degree: 90 percent of data scientists have either a Master's degree (49 percent) or a Ph.D. (41 percent).
 
Businesses, on the other hand, are evolving and realizing that they don't require a highly educated data scientist for every data function. Only specialists with the appropriate skill set and training are needed to undertake specific tasks in the middle ground. As a result, a new job title has emerged: Citizen Data Scientist. Forget about the data scientist's important hero role. No cape or academic degree is required for the citizen data scientist to save the day.

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1. What is a Citizen Data Scientist?

Despite the fact that the term has been around for a few years, there are no job advertisements for "citizen data scientist" on Glassdoor.com. That's because it's not a position that an organization will hire for, but rather a criterion that they must meet. People in the industry use the phrase citizen, but those who hire are focused on the jobs that aren't getting done right now but need to be done.
"A person who builds or generates models that employ predictive or prescriptive analytics, but whose major job role is outside of the realm of statistics and analytics," according to Gartner. They bridge the gap between business users who do self-service analytics and data scientists who do advanced analytics. According to InformationWeek, the "defining trait of the role is that statistics and analytics are secondary."
As a new notion, it isn't well defined yet, though there appears to be agreement on the talents required and the duties to be done. Mike Guilfoyle of ARC described the citizen data scientist as possessing "data science capabilities like as statistics, but not as advanced as a data scientist" in a Forbes article.
 

2. Why Businesses Are Turning to Citizen Data Scientists

It's common knowledge that we have a data scientist scarcity, and businesses are realizing that not every job function requires an advanced degree as they deal with this shortfall. Instead, a citizen data scientist may be educated to perform tasks that are currently unfilled.
 
For example, Big Data influencer Bernard Marr explains how Sears saw a need for people who were more than average Excel users but not as well-trained as data scientists to help them better their customer segmentation. To fulfill this demand, they retrained current employees as Big Data analysts, allowing the shop to make better decisions about the products displayed to website visitors. As the so-called citizen data scientists handled exploratory analysis, visualization, and putting their ideas into action, this cut data preparation expenses by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
 

3. Should You Consider a Job as a Citizen Data Scientist?

With data accumulating at a rate that will soon surpass 1.7 megabytes of data per person every second and a current (and growing) dearth of data scientists, it's reasonable to predict that a career as a citizen data scientist will likely provide plenty of work prospects and high pay.
If you're interested in data and analytics but don't want to go back to school for a Master's or doctorate, getting trained in the skills that will prepare you for a job in this new field makes sense.
 

Become a Citizen Data Scientist

A position as a citizen data scientist can be a fantastic fit for someone who wants to work in data science but can't afford to return to school for an advanced degree, and a certification can be the right training. However, there are various options available to you, depending on whether you're already employed and looking to reskill or if you're looking to start a new profession.
 



  A citizen data scientist is someone who works in a discipline other than statistics and analytics but constructs or generates predictive or prescriptive analytics models. From healthcare to retail, citizen data scientists may be found in almost every industry.