Data expertise is now a highly coveted skill in businesses of all sizes, with many organisations employing entire teams to manage the vast volumes of data they handle to create meaningful insights and models that power decisions and digital products.
However, despite being worth up to £73.3 billion to the economy, the UK’s data industry does face a recruitment crisis. Research from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport in 2021 found that almost half of businesses (48%) are recruiting for roles that require hard data skills, but many (46%) have struggled to recruit for these roles in the previous two years. It’s estimated that there are around 234,000 unfilled roles requiring data skills.
A lack of talent in the field would severely dent the Government’s ambition for the UK to become a world leader in data, as outlined in its National Data Strategy.
With this in mind, Experian recently launched a campaign challenging the UK public to a series of ‘hard data’ puzzles with the aim of encouraging more people to consider careers working in data science. Each puzzle has been designed to test some of the core skills employers generally look for in data-specific roles such as data analysts, data scientists and data engineers.
The challenge is a great indicator of the extent to which someone’s brain is geared towards solving data problems. It has been designed so that anyone can have a go, and creative thinking and logic will go as far as experience in helping find the answers.
The hope is that by helping people think outside the “traditional” routes into a data career, it can help encourage a more diverse cohort of future data scientists into this exciting and thriving sector.
The UK is a great place to work in data. From healthcare and education to entertainment, sports coaching and fashion, a huge range of industries now require an element of data expertise. And with some of the most exciting data companies in the world operating out of the UK, the breadth of opportunity is immense.
Do you have what it takes to solve Experian’s ‘hard data’ challenge?
You can view the complete E2E Job Creation 100 track here
