Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil, Is Data Scientist Still the Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?, Harvard Business Review, 4July 15, 2022.
Ten years ago, the authors posited that being a data scientist was the “sexiest job of the 21st century.” A decade later, does the claim stand up? The job has grown in popularity and is generally well-paid, and the field is projected to experience more growth than almost any other by 2029. But the job has changed, in both large and small ways. It’s become better institutionalized, the scope of the job has been redefined, the technology it relies on has made huge strides, and the importance of non-technical expertise, such as ethics and change management, has grown. How it operates in companies — and how executives need to think about managing data science efforts — has changed, too, as businesses now need to create and oversee diverse data science teams rather than searching for data scientist unicorns. Finally, companies need to think about what comes next, and how they can begin to think about democratizing data science.