The document summarizes the findings of a study conducted by the European Data Science Academy (EDSA) to understand the current demand for data science skills in Europe and identify the appropriate training to address this demand. The study involved surveys of over 500 organizations and 108 interviews across various European countries and industry sectors. The key findings were that communication, business domain knowledge, and soft skills were increasingly important for data scientists, and that both individuals and organizations faced challenges in finding suitable training. Based on these findings, the EDSA made recommendations around priority skills areas and sector-specific training, and developed an online dashboard and courses portal to help address the skills gap.

1. European Data Science Academy: Training the
Next Generation of Data Scientists
Elena Simperl
University of Southampton
@esimperl

2. What is EDSA?
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Dashboards
Landscaping
data science
demand
• Modular, media-rich, extensible,
multiple languages
• Core, specialist, and sector-
specific topics
Curriculum
and courses
• Video lectures and webinars
• MOOCs
• eBooks
• Professional courses
Training and
learning
analytics

3. 1. What is the current demand for
data skills in Europe?
2. What training should be offered
in order to accommodate this
demand?
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Dashboards
Landscaping
data science
demand

4. SURVEYS & INTERVIEWS
Landscaping methods

5. All EU
countries
19 Eurostat
defined
industry
sectors
Sole
traders to
large
companies
584 survey
responses
108
interviews

6. Organisation Eastern
Europe
Northern
Europe
Southern
Europe
Western
Europe
NA Total
Large 69 112 100 105 1 387
SME 36 75 81 45 4 241
Micro 5 14 7 9 1 36
Self-
employed
2 4 5 3 0 14
NA 0 2 2 10 0 14

7. Importance of Data Science Skills
How would you rate the following skills for a
data scientist?

8. Proficiency in Data Science Skills:
Managers
How proficient are you in the following skills
areas? (1=very poor; 5=very good)

9. Proficiency in Data Science Skills:
Practitioners
How proficient are you in the following skills
areas? (1=very poor; 5=very good)

10. M
P

11. Demand for Non-technical Skills
0
5
10
15
20
25
Communication
and presentation
skills
Industry and
business domain
knowledge
Teamwork Data
management
Social skills
% of interviewees
“The data scientist must be willing to adapt quickly in order to keep up.”
Data scientists must have the “soft skills required of interacting with businesses and
guiding the people responsible for making decisions“.

12. Tools, Technologies, Topics

13. Challenges to Find Training
• Majority of interviewees faced challenges with:
– finding courses: “It is difficult to find courses also because there
is no single platform to search within.”
– gathering sufficiently detailed information on contents and
course quality
– finding tailored solutions aligned with team’s needs
• Understanding one’s own status and demand (both as an
individual and organisation) is an additional challenge:
– “The difficulty is finding or understanding where the
individual is in terms of his own skill-set and where he
needs to develop, and then finding the resources to plug into
those gaps.“

14. Training Methods

15. Recommendations
• Communication and persuasion skills
• Social skills
• Basic data literacy training for organisations
• Skills analytics framework
• Sector-specific courses

16. EDSA DASHBOARD
Landscaping methods

17. Job Demand
Data
~300K postings from
• Adzuna (via API) –
UK, DE, FR, N
• Trovit (scraping) –
additional 18
countries, 13 with
good coverage
Extracted information
• Time, geolocation
• Skills
Country No. of Postings Extracted
Austria 4,694
Belgium 10,764
Bulgaria 44
Czech Republic 6,232
Denmark 7,026
Estonia 2
France 34,881
Germany 20,938
Hungary 7,225
Ireland 18,919
Italy 11,543
Malta 38
The Netherlands 9,571
Norway 33
Poland 18,159
Portugal 21,784
Romania 17,946
Slovakia 3
Spain 9,210
Sweden 13,870
Switzerland 14,616
United Kingdom 89,343
TOTAL 316,841

18. dashboard.edsa-project.eu
Policy makers

19. dashboard.edsa-project.eu (2)
Job seekers

20. Addressing Demand
EDSA courses portal: edsa-project.eu/resources/courses/