Data analysts have been hot properties in India’s job market for years. Currently, there are about 97,000 analytics jobs waiting to be filled in India, according to a recent study by Analytics India Magazine and ed-tech company Great Learning. This is a jump of almost 45%, compared with a year ago.
This study, as others before have shown, indicates how a shortage of skilled data analytics workers is looming over India’s IT industry. “…the analytics and data science talent supply will not be able to keep pace with job growth,” it says. “In other words, there isn’t enough analytics talent and organisations will continue to face hiring challenges.”
While the study shows how analysts have been in demand for a while, it also demonstrates how employment patterns for analytics professionals seem to have changed dramatically in the past year.
For example, nearly 60% of demand for data analytics workers in 2019 so far has come from multinational corporations (MNCs) and knowledge process outsourcing service providers, which is much higher than just around 25% last year.
Some of the MNCs that are hiring the most analytics professionals are Accenture $ACN, Amazon $AMZN, KPMG, Honeywell $HON, Wells Fargo $WFC, and Ernst & Young.
As MNCs hire more data analysts, captive centres—client-owned and operated service delivery offices—seem to be hiring far fewer. This year, captive centres accounted for less than 10% of total listed data science jobs, compared with around 40% last year, and over 55% the year before that.
Hiring patterns for data analysts across different industries have also changed, though less dramatically. The telecom industry, which last year posted 8% of all ads looking to hire analytics professionals, accounted for just 4% of those ads this year.
Even hiring in the banking and financial services industry, which has for years recruited the most people in the field, this year fell to 38% of all job postings, from 41% last year.
Meanwhile, the automobile, retail, healthcare, and e-commerce industries all increased their share of the talent search pie.
Among other changes, the study brings some heartening news for senior analytics professionals. The overall share of jobs advertised in higher salary brackets increased this year. For example, while jobs offering salaries over Rs15 lakh ($21,000) per annum constituted 20% of all analytics jobs offered in 2018, that share has risen to 23% in 2019 so far.
