Now the black gold of business, data and those who know how to manipulate it are increasingly coveted. Data analyst, data engineer, data scientist, digital protection officer, data architect... these are the star jobs of 2021. And also those whose salaries are set to rise the most in 2022. What are the differences between these professions? What are their responsibilities? What skills do they require? We give you the keys to understanding them better.
Data-related jobs are on a roll. This is borne out by Michael Page's 2022 remuneration survey: data analysts are among the 3 jobs whose salaries are set to rise the most in 2022. And the trend is not about to reverse itself, since 50 % of companies do not have the skills in-house to develop their digital activities, according to Acsel, the association of players in the digital economy. What's more, the volume of data worldwide is set to increase 45-fold between 2020 and 2035, according to the Statista website.
The data analyst
Its missions
As their name suggests, data analysts analyse the data they extract from databases in order to provide recommendations to solve a business problem. It is the analyst who makes the decisions. They identify the data needed for analysis, highlight trends and design business intelligence and web analytics reports to communicate to their managers or clients.
Its skills
Graduates with 4 or 5 years' higher education in statistics, econometrics or big data. On the technical side, data analysts need to master various tools, such as Excel, as well as languages specialising in data processing and statistical analysis: Python, R, SAS and SQL.
To present their reports, they need to know how to use data visualisation tools (Tableau, Power BI) and how to choose the type of graphical representation best suited to the data being processed and the target audience.
His salary
- 35-45 K€ annual gross (beginner0-2 years experience)
- 45-60 K€ annual gross (confirmed2-5 years experience)
- 60-80 K€ annual gross (senior5 years' experience or more)
Data analysts may progress to become data scientists.
The data scientist
Its missions
A little higher up the hierarchy of data-related professions, the data scientist has more varied and more in-depth skills than the data analyst. They also have a wider remit. They are responsible for data management. They build machine learning algorithms, develop statistical and predictive models, and provide decision-making tools to business teams. In other words, they translate business problems into equations.
Its skills
With a 5-year post-graduate degree in computer science (specialising in big data), statistics or data science, data scientists are proficient in programming languages (C++, Python, Java, R, etc.), database languages (SQL/NoSQL, etc.), machine learning and deep learning development environments and libraries (TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, Karas, Hadoop/Spark), and dataviz tools (Power BI, Tableau, SAS). Finally, he is familiar with Unix, Linux and Windows systems.
His salary
- 45-60 K€ annual gross (beginner0-2 years experience)
- 60-70 K€ annual gross (confirmed2-5 years experience)
- 70-90 K€ annual gross (senior5 years' experience or more)
The data engineer
Its missions
This IT engineer works upstream of the data scientist. They develop and implement the tools and platforms for processing and analysing the data. They must ensure that the data circuits are secure and that the data is clear enough to be analysed by the data analysts and transformed by the data scientists.
Its skills
With a 5-year postgraduate degree in IT, data science or statistics, this engineer has a thorough knowledge of SQL/NoSQL, JavaScript, Scala and Python. He or she is also familiar with big data technologies for manipulating data (ETL, Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, etc.). They have in-depth knowledge of UNIX, Linux, Solaris and other operating systems, as well as expertise in data storage.
His salary
- 35-45 K€ annual gross (beginner0-2 years experience)
- 45-60 K€ annual gross (confirmed2-5 years experience)
- 60-80 K€ annual gross (senior5 years' experience or more)
The data protection officer (DPO)
Its missions
Combining IT and legal expertise, the DPO is the company's point of reference for everything to do with data protection policy. The French and European regulations in force, in particular the RGPD (General Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data), hold no secrets for him or her. He makes employees aware of these legal imperatives and implements good practice within the company. He draws up compliance procedures and liaises with the IT Department on the actions to be taken to comply with the regulations, and monitors them. It manages requests to exercise rights.
Its skills
With a 5-year post-graduate degree in digital law, IT or business law, with a specialisation in new technology law, this professional is familiar with the legal and environmental framework (RGPD, CNIL, EU, etc.). They must also have IT skills (cybersecurity, cloud, databases, etc.) and project management skills, such as the ability to conduct an impact assessment.
His salary
- 40-50 K€ annual gross (beginner0-2 years experience)
- 50-70 K€ annual gross (confirmed2-5 years experience)
- 70-100 K€ annual gross (senior5 years' experience or more)
The data architect
Its missions
He is the conductor of the data team. He or she designs and builds the infrastructure for collecting, processing, storing and protecting the company's data. All in line with the company's strategy and the requirements, norms and standards of the data architecture. They also design inter-application integration mechanisms. He/she plays an active role in drawing up the project roadmap for the components of the data platforms (DataHub, BI/data visualisation, Analytics and data science, etc.) by identifying the opportunities for these projects with the main stakeholders.
Its skills
Graduates of an engineering school or Master's degree (bac+4 or bac+5) should already have solid professional experience as a big data project manager or data engineer.
Not only must data architects master all the skills of a data engineer, they must also be familiar with server infrastructures and data hosting in the cloud (Azure HDinsight, EMR AWS) or on site (Cloudera, HortonWorks, Saagie, Hadoop Apache...). Working as part of a team, you will obviously need to master all the techniques of project management, with a good understanding of the company's business issues.
His salary
- 50-60 K€ annual gross (beginner0-2 years experience)
- 60-80 K€ annual gross (confirmed2-5 years experience)
- 80-150 K€ annual gross (senior5 years' experience or more)
