With a deeper penetration of smartphones and the rapid urban adaption of internet-enabled smart devices, more and more Indians are familiar with the workings of advanced technologies like Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, automation and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Indeed in 2020, India is set to witness over a million job openings for data scientists – registering a 62 percent increase on 2019, a report by home-grown edu-tech company Great Learning said on Monday.
Demand for data scientists would surge in sectors like banking, insurance, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, health-care and information technology (IT) with the average annual salary touching nearly $20,000 (INR 13.56 lakh).
The report also revealed that the data science sector has been sluggish and struggling in India due to a dearth of skilled professionals. In 2019, over 95,000 job openings in data sciences remained unfilled.
The four major branches of data science jobs in India include – data engineers, data analysts and business intelligence developers.
In a bid to train young people in advanced technologies, foreign tech players have been launching initiatives in the country.
In September 2019, US-based software giant Microsoft launched its “Highway to a Hundred Unicorns” programme in India to train entrepreneurs in cloud computing, ML, AI and Data Sciences.
The Windows-maker, along with Amazon’s Cloud arm Amazon Web Services (AWS), offered to train Indian government workers in Blockchain and other advanced technologies.
In December, foreign companies were offering graduates of India’s top engineering colleges pay hikes of up to ten percent.
International tech and auto majors like Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, Uber, Samsung and Jaguar have offered packages of up to $140,000 to Indian students.
