Is it still worth becoming a data scientist?

With salaries flattening and competition rising, there are signs the prospects for data scientists may be less stellar than once thought.

For several years data scientist has been ranked as one of the top jobs in the US, in terms of pay, job demand, and satisfaction.

But there are signs the prospects for data scientists may be less stellar than once thought, as salaries begin to plateau.

Figures produced by Glassdoor Economic Research show a year-on-year fall in US data scientist wages in February and March of this year, a levelling off in pay also identified by Stack Overflow.

“On Glassdoor, we’ve seen pay for data scientists actually shrink 1.2 percent in March 2019,” said Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao.

“This is a continuation of a longer running trend—data scientist wage growth has been well below the national average for the last year.”

Glassdoor is not alone in noticing the trend, with a similar tailing off of salaries evident in data collected by Stack Overflow over the past year.

“Data scientist salaries are moving closer to the mainstream of software developer salaries in general,” said Stack Overflow data scientist Julia Silge, adding there was “much less of a difference” between the pay of the two groups when controlling for education level.

As for the reason for the salary squeeze, for Glassdoor’s Zhao, it’s clear that there are now more candidates for data scientist roles than there are jobs available.

“As data science has risen in prominence, enrolments in data science programs and bootcamps have exploded. This huge increase in workers for limited entry-level jobs is holding down wages,” he said.

While analyst reports often discuss the sharp uptick in demand for data science skills, anecdotal evidence from those in the industry suggests that demand may be being outstripped by the large numbers of new entrants to the field, thanks to the explosion in the number of data science courses offered by online learning hubs like Fast.ai and Coursera.

Vicky Boykis, senior manager for data science and engineering at CapTech Ventures, wrote that she and others she knows in the industry have seen more than a fivefold increase in the numbers applying for junior data science roles.

“It can be very hard for someone with a new degree in data science to find a data science position, given how many new people they’re competing with in the market,” she wrote.