A view on the data and analytics job landscape in Vancouver
November 1, 2021
By Matt St.John & Will Cashman
Senior leaders from some of Vancouver's largest employers in the data and analytics space have come together to form the Vancouver Analytics Board, with a mission to make Vancouver the best place for data and analytics professionals to live and work in North America.
One of the problems the Board is committed to solving is the gap that exists between analytics jobs in the city and those looking for analytics work. So much information we receive around data and analytics comes from media, vendors, educational institutions, and consultants...as opposed to from data and analytics practitioners themselves. In many cases, this creates mis-aligned expectations and mis-understanding around the positions that employers are actually hiring for, what they’re looking for in hiring for each role, the type of work each position does and how they add value to the organization.
To guide students seeking to enter the job market or those wanting to transition from a different field, the Board has pooled their numbers to give a snapshot of the data and analytics related roles in their organizations today and what it may look like in 2 years. They also partner with Universities to ensure that programs are getting students ready for the roles that Vancouver companies need in data and analytics.
Data collected was from a handful of large, mature, successful organizations in Vancouver from the retail, health care, banking and tourism industries. While not all industries and organization sizes and types are represented, it can be used as a directional guide. Results have also been verified to be consistent with similar studies in other markets.
From the chart above, it can be seen that Data Analyst, Data Engineer and Data Visualization Engineer are the most in-demand roles from Vancouver employers both now and over the next 2 years. In addition, Data Platform Engineer, Data Scientist and ML Ops Engineer are the positions that are expected to have the highest growth in demand over the next 2 years. Digital Analyst continues its place as a more specialized data and analytics position most prominent in ecommerce organizations.
Perhaps the most surprising is the Data Scientist position in the middle. With all the hype, some may have expected this to be at the top of the chart. While it is true that Data Science has the potential to transform organizations, innovate and deliver exponential growth, it should be thought of as a team sport rather than to fall on the shoulders of a single Data Scientist in an organization. For an organization to be successful with Data Science, it takes all of the roles in the chart above, plus software developers, ops engineers, BAs, Product Managers, data savvy business leaders, executives, etc.