Market Overview

Companies are currently recruiting data analytics professionals centered on data scientists including AI experts, regardless of new graduates or mid-career experts. For training, there have been some curriculums established for each rank and for in-house as well as for outsourced. Competition for top talent on data analytics is intense especially over experienced talents, as companies generally lack such experts.

First, for new graduates, major IT companies have started job-oriented recruitment. Though user companies continue hiring new graduates en masse, some show a shift to job-oriented recruitment for IT personnel, and there have been some cases of data scientists and other data analytics experts being hired as specialists.
Next, for experienced personnel, companies, regardless of IT companies or user companies, are proactive in recruiting data scientists who are ready to contribute. Those user companies particularly vigorous in recruiting such personnel are manufacturers of electricity, automobiles, chemicals, pharmaceutical, and in other industries such as retailing, distribution, and finance.

For training, IT businesses tend to provide training programs for other companies, not limited to in-house, backed by higher demand for reskilling. User companies, on the other hand, are hastily preparing training programs partly by implementing the curriculums from other companies. There are companies that organize highly advanced curriculums by aligning with local universities.

As shortage of data scientists is the issue, educational institutions have started addressing production of data scientists and other data analytics professionals by establishing the faculty and graduate schools, but shortage of teachers and instructors remain unsolved.

Noteworthy Topics

Both IT Businesses and User Companies Accelerating for Attracting Highly Skilled Personnel, Former by Creating Mechanism and Latter by Organizing Multi-Layer Training Programs

IT businesses, chiefly major companies, are taking various measures to lure skilled talents. In addition to establishing unique certified qualification programs, companies show some efforts such as Hackathon participation and flexible IT environments that are used for enticing data scientists, while setting up special employment systems for fixed term employment and expensive annual salary systems according to skills to acquire top researchers.

User companies, on the other hand, position data scientists as the instructor to infiltrate data driven management that use data for decision making and business operation. They show the moves of providing training curriculums not only for data scientists bus also for all employees according to each rank, including the management, thereby to bring up data analytics professionals through multi-layer training programs.

Municipalities are also addressing recruitment and training of data analytics experts, aiming to press ahead with EBPM* throughout the organization.

*EBPM: A method of policy making, with its abbreviation “Evidence-based Policy Making”. After making clear of the objectives of the policy, policymaking is conducted based on information or data (evidence) that are important in measuring the effects of the policy.

Future Outlook

The number of domestic data analytics professionals (analytics consultants, data scientists, analytic architects, and project managers) is projected to reach 176,300 by FY2025.
All four types of the experts are likely to grow, because of increase in the numbers of data analytics projects as well as the cases of such professionals to be prepared in-house against a backdrop of promotions of digital transformation and data-driven management.

Upon propelling digital transformation projects, IT businesses seem to find it ever more important to place analytic consultants who are significant in succeeding the business, together with those specialists like data scientists and analytic architects who are closer to IT.
In association with the penetration in data-driven management, some user companies are launching a special department for data scientists and analytic architects due to higher momentum for making data analytics in-house. Not limited to the department specializing in supporting data analytics, the tendency is expanding to business units where data analytics is beginning to be used for streamlining of the business and for business launch.

Research Outline