The shifting demand of data skills in the Spanish market

I’ve been recruiting within the Data industry in different cities across Europe for years and have witnessed the changing trends of ‘Data skills’ over the past few years. But experiencing the recent months of COVID-19 lockdown as both a Spaniard and Data Recruiter has brought me to reflect on how far the data industry has come within Spain, and how this pandemic has exposed the prevalence of data in our lives.

A change in demand

While trends come and go, for us it has been an impressive scale-up journey for the past few years, developing professionals and innovative projects within companies, a curve that has allowed us to go from having our talent moving away to find jobs, to attracting worldwide experts who have relocated here and even having international companies opening Data Hubs in Spanish soil.

So, it’s not a surprise that if we look around, we now have thousands of Data professionals locally - with Data Scientists heading in numbers, followed very close by Data Analysts and Data Engineers. All of them have grown over 10% comparing it to last year, but let’s pay close attention to the growth of Machine Learning Engineers who don’t make it to the top on “job titles”, but have grown over 18% against the previous year.

The pool hasn’t increased by accident – it’s done so because there is a demand. In fact, there is so much demand that it’s a battle to find talent. How will Covid-19 impact the industry and that demand? Truth is, its unpredictable because the matter has no precedents. What I am sure of is, while many sectors will suffer, Data related projects will continue being essential to move forward. It can be done remotely, and it can support wide-ranging business requirements - from marketing strategies to saving lives.   

Looking beyond tech skills 

Within the thousands of those local Data professionals mentioned earlier, we must take notice of the fact that almost 60% of those have Python Skills, 50% have SQL, 40% have R, following between 20% and 30% Java. Matlab and C + +.

Data Viz tools are also present on the insights with around the 15% possessing either Tableau (most common), Power BI, Qlikview, Looker (big spike) …or similar. And it’s interesting to see, Azure taking the lead over GCP and AWS in the last 12 months.

Talking about skills tends to drive us towards the tech stack. However, if I look at why candidates don’t secure certain roles sometimes it’s not as simple as “they haven’t passed the tech test”. Often, I hear rejections based on soft skills – not referring purely to “cultural fit” but things such as lack of business acumen and mindset, short on communication abilities with non-technical people, couldn’t verbalise approaches to projects, to name a few common ones. This could be down to nerves during interview processes, but we must realise that Unicorn profiles (or however we want to call them) are not robots, coding machines, or anything like that - they are people who ultimately solve problems and they need to have a balance between technical and soft skills – and that for me, is what’s on-demand.

Here to help:

Currently in search of Data professionals in Spain or across Europe, but aren’t sure where to find top talent or just haven’t found the right match? I can help you! As a specialist data recruiter for the Spanish and European market, I have built up a vast talent pool and can help you find the most suited talent for your requirements. Email me today or give me a call on +34 934 929 919.

Or maybe you’re a data professional and that last part of my article sounded all too familiar for you? My job is to help candidates like you to shine in front of employers and to showcase the best of your abilities - without letting nerves or a lack of practice get in the way of that dream role. Give me a call on +34 934 929 919 or email me here today for support in your job search