Are There Enough Skilled Individuals for Data Engineering Jobs in India?

The demand for data engineers in India has been increasing constantly, and has witnessed a hike especially for the last year. However, there seems to be a lack of enough skilled individuals where data science is concerned. A study by Great Learning revealed that over 93,500 data science jobs were vacant in India at the end of August 2020. In an interview with Dataquest, Anshuman Das, cofounder and CEO, CareerNet revealed the reason behind the demand-supply gap for data engineering jobs in India.

DQ: Data engineering jobs seem to be on the rise in India. What has led to this development?

Anshuman Das: Owing to the rapid digital transformation across several industries, there is a significant rise in the demand for skilled data scientists. From industry verticals to consumer demands, everything is going digital. In fact, traditional industries too, are embracing digital disruption to improve operational efficiencies and customer experience.

The large volumes of data available with companies today because of digitization are turning out to be invaluable assets. As digital interactions are skyrocketing, inventories are being filled with varieties of both structured and unstructured data. Therefore, for businesses to adhere to consumer demands and market changes, processing data, spotting both hidden demand and supply trends and deriving actionable insights are becoming indispensable.

DQ: Are there enough skilled individuals as far as data engineering jobs are concerned? What is the demand-supply gap?

Anshuman Das: There is a significant gap between the demand and supply of data scientists. Demand for Data Engineers has outstripped supply in the past years and the last few years have consequently witnessed a constant shortage of skilled data engineering talent.

Unlike engineers who can be hired within 6-8 weeks, it generally takes about 11-12 weeks to appoint data scientists.

DQ: Why the demand-supply gap?

Anshuman Das: A smaller number of candidates taking up specialised training and the overall shortage of software engineers are the two primary reasons for the demand-supply gap.

The job of a Data Engineer or a Data Scientist is complex, and it requires proficient skills in computer science and programming. While the gap can be bridged with training, quality data engineers or data scientists must have practical, hands-on experience of handling large sets of data. This process takes time.

DQ: How Much Salary Do Data Engineers Get Paid in India?

Anshuman Das: The initial salary of the data science professionals is 15-20% higher than that of engineers. While switching jobs, most candidates look forward to securing a 25%-30% hike whereas data scientists demand a raise of 35%-45%. As opposed to the other employees who are assigned 15%-20% annual pay hikes on average, data scientists’ hike falls between 20% and 30%.