South Africa is currently facing a skills crisis that is being driven by the shortage of data scientists. According to Forbes, many organizations in South Africa are scrambling to find skilled data science professionals and this has led to an increase in salaries. The more experience you have as a data scientist, the higher your salary will be.

To address this skills gap, there are a few options for individuals who want to start their career as a data scientist in South Africa. You can look for courses that will provide you with the right education or go through additional training programmes offered by organisations looking to recruit talented individuals. Here’s a list of some advanced courses being offered by top companies:

Advanced Analytics Course – JP Morgan Chase & Co.

– This course focuses on big data and teaches participants how to use a range of analytical tools to deal with data. The course will provide you with hands-on experience that includes working on projects, workshops, etc. You’ll be able to select the modules that are most relevant to your interests and level of skills as well. JP Morgan Chase offers scholarships for this course on an annual basis.

Advanced R Programming – Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)

– This course focuses on giving you a good grasp of R programming fundamentals so you can apply your knowledge in real world scenarios. This program is designed for both experienced programmers who want to take their skills further and those who don’t have any previous experience with R programming . In addition, there’s also a certification exam at the end of the course.

Data Science with Apache Spark – Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)

– This is a 3-day programming intensive course that teaches participants how to use data science tools like Hadoop, Storm and Spark for distributed computing. In addition, this course also offers plenty of practical training as well as hands on sessions for you to learn more about real world scenarios where these big data tools can be applied effectively.

SAS Programming – SAS Institute South Africa

– This 2 day interactive course focuses on giving participants an overview of basic SAS programming concepts so they can apply their skills in real world scenarios. The key topics covered by the program include writing macros, creating reports etc. You’ll also get hands-on working experience during the course and can do additional practical exercises if you have access to a SAS computer.

These are just some of the data science courses being offered in South Africa. For a more comprehensive listing, visit here: http://www.sas.com/en_za/education-training/coursetrends.html

As more companies start to realise that they need skilled data scientists on their teams, these advanced training programs will continue to gain popularity in South Africa. However, there’s still a long way to go before we see an actual solution for this skills gap problem. With proper funding and support from government as well as other players in the industry, the number of available training courses and resources will only increase along with the shortage.

There is also a need to build more awareness around data science as it is such a new field and most existing professionals are still getting accustomed to its concepts. In fact, recent studies have shown that there’s only a small percentage of the population (9%) who have heard of data science and think they know what the term actually means. If this continues, the demand for skilled data scientists in South Africa will continue to skyrocket and we’ll never be able to keep up with the growing skills gap problem faced by most organizations.

Source: HOBREVIEWS

School of IT’s Data Science course:

School of IT offers a 6 month/120 data science course with R or python. You will learn how to Apply data analysis, data mining and data engineering to present data clearly and develop experiments (A/B testing) Ensure high-quality data and understand how data is generated out experimental design and how these experiments can produce actionable, trustworthy conclusions.