Data Scientist Certifications For A Rewarding Career

Updated 12 September 2023

Data scientists analyse data using different computing, statistical and mathematical techniques. As the career path of data science is complex, pursuing relevant certifications equips you with the skills, expertise and fundamentals to succeed. If you are a data scientist or plan to become one, learning about the various data science certifications can help you choose one to advance your career. In this article, we explain what data scientist certifications are and list some you can earn to validate your skills, and competency in the data science field.

Please note that none of the companies, institutions or organisations mentioned in this article are associated with Indeed.

What Are Data Scientist Certifications?

Data scientist certifications are courses that verify your skills and capabilities to work as a data scientist. These certifications teach you the basics of big data, machine learning (ML), statistics, Python and structured query language (SQL). They help you develop the practical experience and professional portfolio for a data scientist role. Most of these certifications teach technical skills through project-based learning, allowing you to develop your skills and create an impressive portfolio. As these certifications focus on applying data science in a business context, they can help you excel as a data scientist.

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Data Scientist Certifications

Here are some certifications for a successful career as a data scientist:

IBM Data Science Professional Certificate

The Data Science Professional Certificate provided by Coursera is a beginner-level certification that helps you start your career in data science and ML. During the course, you learn and build data science skills, develop Python and SQL skills, analyse and visualise data and build ML models. You require no prior work experience to pursue this certification. The course enables you to use Python to build and evaluate ML models, and pipelines. The course lasts five months and students can complete it with under three hours of study per week.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate

Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Scientist Associate is another widely accepted certificate that develops your subject matter expertise in applying data science and ML on Azure. It validates your ability to manage and prepare data in the Azure development environment. This certification requires subject-matter expertise, experience and knowledge in data science, MLflow and Azure ML. You even learn to train machine learning models, run jobs to prepare for production, implement pipelines and monitor scalable ML solutions.

SAS Data Science Certification

The Data Science Certification offered by SAS helps you gain insights into big data and various SAS, and open-source tools. It teaches you how to make business recommendations using complex ML methods. You can earn this certification with a combination of credentials, including:

Advanced Analytics Professional
Data Curation Professional
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Professional

These courses help you understand data management, Hadoop and other big data concepts. This certification helps you gain the ability to solve critical business challenges.

CompTIA Data+

CompTIA Data+ is an early career data analytics certification that helps you develop and promote data-driven business decisions. This course develops your basic knowledge of data schemas, concepts and dimensions, and helps you understand the difference between data structures and file formats. Students develop data mining, data governance, quality and control, visualisation and data concept skills. The course improves your ability to summarise important data governance concepts and helps you apply them to different quality control aspects.

Certification requires passing an exam comprising 90 questions, which candidates complete in 90 minutes. It is recommended you have 18–24 months of experience in a report and business analyst role, and a basic understanding of statistics and data visualisation experience to take the certification course.

Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)

The CAP credential is an independent validation that shows your expertise in the analytics processes, including model building, analytics problem framing, business problem framing, lifecycle management and deployment. To complete the course, you require the following:

Bachelor's degree
Three years of experience with a master's degree, five years with a bachelor's degree or seven years with any degree in an unrelated area

Completing the CAP exam and adhering to the CAP Code of Ethics is essential. The certificate requires renewal every three years to confirm your aptitude for soft skills. You can maintain your certification by earning Professional Development Units (PDUs). Preparation sources for the CAP exam include study guides, webinars and mock questions.

Professional Certificate in Data Science

The Professional Certificate in Data Science offers helps you learn fundamental R programming skills. It teaches statistical concepts such as modelling, probability and interference, and helps you apply them practically. During the course, students learn about R Basics, visualisation, productivity tools, probability, inference and mobility, ML, linear regression and Capstone. After the course, you gain proficiency in ggplot2 data visualisation and dplyr, and tidyverse data wrangling. This self-paced course requires a commitment of two to three hours per week, and students can complete it in 18 months.

Advanced Certification in Data Science and AI

The Advanced Certification in Data Science and AI is an online course from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Chennai, Data Science Institute. Typically, individuals with bachelor's degrees and those wanting to work as data scientists, and AI engineers complete this certification. During the course, you gain proficiency in ML and artificial intelligence skills. After completing the course, you build knowledge of Microsoft Excel data analysis, Python data science, ML, Power Business Intelligence (BI), Capstone project data science, and deep learning using TensorFlow.

The course offers 400 hours of applied learning and 218 hours of self-paced studying with more than 50 live sessions across seven months.

Data Science Council of America (DASCA) Principal Data Scientist (PDS)

The DASCA offers the PDS certification, which is ideal for data scientists with more than 10 years of experience in big data. This certification reviews everything from fundamentals to advanced data science concepts, such as business strategies for data, big data best practices, ML, natural language processing, building cross-organisational support and scholastic modelling. PDS certification confirms your ability to transform an organisation's data and business intelligence infrastructure. The certification helps you improve organisational and business outcomes through data science.

Many data scientists pursue this certification because it helps them become technology leaders in a community of data science experts. Completing this course enables you to impact governance, business, security, social development, research and education outcomes using the latest data science, and analytics technologies.

Data Science Associate

The Data Science Associate certification that Dell Technologies Education Services offers is a beneficial credential for data scientists. This certification introduces you to big data analytics tools, including Hadoop and MapReduce. The course provides practical foundation-level training that ensures effective and immediate participation in big data, and other analytics projects. It introduces topics, such as big data and data analytics lifecycle, essential for addressing business challenges. After completing the course, students can apply for the Dell EMC Proven Professional Data Scientist Associate Certification exam. The duration of this online course is 40 hours.

Applied Data Science with Python Specialisation

The Applied Data Science with Python Specialisation is a University of Michigan five-course certification. It introduces you to the data science field using Python language. To complete this course, you require proficiency in Python programming. During the course, you learn about ML, information visualisation and social network analysis techniques using Python toolkits, such as matplotlib, pandas, network and nltk, to gain insights into data. Earning this certification requires completion of all five courses, including:

Data science in Python
Applied plotting, charting and data representation in Python
Applied machine learning in Python
Applied text mining in Python
Applied social network analysis in Python