Data analytics is more than just a 21st-century fad. As a result, Britain faces a significant digital data skills shortage in almost every industry. The ability to access and work with data and analytics has been more critical than before, yet the demand for these data skills far outstrips supply.

The digital skills shortage costs the UK economy £12.8 billion a year.

Research by Virgin Media O2 estimated that the digital skills shortage costs the UK economy £12.8 billion annually, while 55% of organisations face skill shortages. Companies responding to the McKinsey survey say solving the data analytics skills shortage is a priority.

So, how do companies use big data?

Data is used all around us daily, from recommendations on Netflix or Google for search and spam filtering. Big data is big business in the tech arena. Most data usage examples look at things happening behind the scenes, like app development and strategy. So why don’t we look at examples of how data can be used?

Spotify

Just like every year since 2016, this month brings Spotify Wrapped. Spotify Wrapped is a year-in-review playlist and slideshow that serves up various data points from the past year of listening. It includes statistics like how many minutes of music people listened to, favourite artists and songs, and how close someone is to being a superfan.

The data is used for many backend purposes. The annual campaign is an excellent example of using that data to offer insights into people’s musical tastes. It’s a clever marketing campaign but puts data in the spotlight. Using data analytics, Spotify can tell users if they’re one of an artist’s most loyal followers or if they discovered music before it was ‘cool’. These facts are from data analytics and creating an emotive story, helping to build brand loyalty.

In December 2020, Spotify Wrapped boosted app downloads by 21%.

Tesco

Before we were doing our supermarket shops on the internet, in 1995, Tesco launched a new rewards scheme – Tesco Clubcard. The idea was simple – for each transaction, a customer carried out, they would present their Clubcard and earn points to spend in-store. In exchange, Tesco collected a record of the sale associated with the customer’s name and postcode. By 2022 standards, the data collected is pretty limited. Still, it provided Tesco with some key insights. Using data analytics, Tesco learned that a few loyal customers accounted for most of their sales. They also noticed that people were willing to travel to their stores. With these insights, Tesco created tailored coupons and offers to nudge their customer behaviour, rewarding high spenders and encouraging the casual customer to engage more with their stores. Within the first couple of months of launching, Clubcard customers were spending 4% more than non-Clubcard customers.

Over the years, Tesco has collected more detailed data and customer buying habits, favourite products, and so on. The digital era has made data collection much more manageable. The Clubcard helped put rewards schemes on the map and supported Tesco becoming the UK’s largest supermarket.

Nintendo

For their Switch console release, Nintendo installed a brand-new graphics chip. The chip is no average graphic chip. Instead, it uses deep learning super sampling (DLSS). Adopting AI and machine learning, the chip analyses data and dynamically enhances graphics and renderings so users can experience high-quality visuals with minimal lag. The chip is great for a handheld device with limited processing power due to its size.

Users can enjoy the graphics they would expect from a computer with a graphics processing unit (GPU). Other pioneering uses for data analytics are emerging. This includes non-scripted computer characters driven by algorithms that respond to player interactions, making the interactions unique to the individual player.

There’s also work to incorporate natural language processing so that, in the future, you may be able to interact with a game verbally, just as you would with your voice assistant. However, the most promising possibility for data analytics in gaming is using machine learning to generate expansive landscapes automatically. This would save thousands of hours of developer and graphics time.

Big data is here to stay!

Opinium found a significant demand for data skills, with UK companies recruiting for 178,000 to 234,000 roles requiring hard data skills. Half of the businesses (48%) are recruiting for positions that require hard data skills, but under half (46%) have struggled to recruit for these roles over the last two years.

The supply of graduates with specialist data skills from universities is limited. While many companies undertake to train their workers internally, half of all workers surveyed reported they had yet to receive any data skills training within the last two years despite considerable interest in undertaking training.

Our ICT and data qualifications can help bridge the data skills gap by training current or new staff and building on the knowledge.

You can find out more about our qualifications here.