About the Course

Almost every communication or interaction that takes place in the world today involves a digital interface, whether this is a computer, a laptop, a mobile phone, a smartcard, a camera or a sensor. These interactions are stored as data which can be mined to make better decisions, systems and research.

Recent advances in computational power, machine intelligence and the massive growth of sources of data has led to the development of a new area study: Data Science.

We are no longer looking machine parts or airlines, or stocks and shares data; we are looking at data about people and the world they inhabit. Jake Porway (Executive Director of DataKind) says: “A data scientist is a rare hybrid, a computer scientist with the programming abilities to build software to scrape, combine, and manage data from a variety of sources and a statistician who knows how to derive insights from the information within. S/he combines the skills to create new prototypes with the creativity and thoroughness to ask and answer the deepest questions about the data and what secrets it”. This programme is designed for such people.

This course is built around the strong skill base of experts in the Mathematics and Computer Science department and to illustrate how new technologies, cutting edge research and novel scientific perspectives can be used together to influence future society in significant and fundamental ways.

Careers

This new subject is in high demand: there is an a year on year 13% - 23% increase in demand for Data Scientists with 46% of industry currently having difficultly recruiting staff. It is such a new subject that very few potential Data Scientists have the effective blend of requisite skills in programming, statistics and specific subject knowledge.

The talent shortage has been evidenced in a number of recent reports: for example the “Big Data Report” from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estimates that the demand for data analysts could exceed the current supply by 140,000 to 190,000 positions by the year 2018. This report illustrates that there are 440,000 to 490,000 total data analyst job positions projected for 2018 with only 300,000 trained analyst to fill those positions. In other words, the demand for big data analysts could be 50 to 60% greater than its projected supply by 2018.

26% of companies in the UK are using or planning to use cloud-based big data services, yet only 13% feel they have the skills. Better use of big data could add £216 billion to the UK economy by 2017 (source CEBR).

In a recent report by McKinsey the use of Data Science is predicted to become a key basis of competition and growth in individual firms.