It’s no secret that data science has become the weapon of choice for businesses in search of new insights. Modern companies gather massive amounts of data each day, and the skills required to extract value from this data are more coveted than ever.

As a relatively new and rapidly-evolving discipline, however, the backgrounds and job functions of data scientists can vary greatly. So what makes a data scientist a data scientist? How many of them are out there? And which companies are hiring as many as they can find?

Recently, the team at RJMetrics analyzed LinkedIn profiles of Data Scientists in an attempt to answer these questions and shed some light on the advent of the modern data scientist. Here’s what we found:

• The number of data scientists has doubled over the last 4 years.
• 6,300, or 55%, of identified data scientists are located in the United States, with the United Kingdom, India, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Australia and Israel closing out the top 10.
• Over 79% of data scientists that list their education have earned a graduate degree, and 38% have earned a PhD.
• The majority of data scientists come from STEM graduate-level backgrounds, with Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics and Physics leading the way. However, there are significant differences at the Master’s and PhD levels.

Read on for more insights and the details behind these findings.

The number of data scientists

Data scientists have the sexiest job of the 21 century, are paid extremely well, and are being recruited at a pace to match the proliferation of data. So how many are there? Our study found 11,400 self-identified data scientists currently employed by companies known to LinkedIn.

The term ‘data scientist’ itself is fairly new and its definition is still being debated daily, so this number is a conservative estimate that excludes those who merely dabble in Excel or only have aspirations of data science.

To get a sense of just how quickly this title is being adopted, at least 52% of all data scientists have earned that title within the past 4 years.

Data scientists by location

According to our data, 55% of all the data scientists on LinkedIn are located in the United States. This is not really all that surprising, considering that data science originated in the US, the US has arguably the highest concentration of tech companies in the world, and LinkedIn reports that over 30% of its users are in America.

Interestingly, the Netherlands cracked the top 10 with 2,500 data scientists and one of the highest concentrations of data scientists per person. Israel’s concentration was the highest, however, with more than double the data scientist density of any other country.

Where do data scientists work?

Data-driven companies are outperforming their competition. It’s no surprise then to see today’s most well-known brands fully stocked on the data science skill set.

While many newer companies appear on this chart (LinkedIn, Twitter, Groupon) the only modern-generation tech company to appear in the top 5 is Facebook. Facebook employs the second most data scientists of any company (132) but Microsoft employs nearly twice that number (227).

These numbers -- like the number of data scientists in general -- have grown rapidly over time as companies begin to build out their data science teams. For instance, from 2013 to 2014, Facebook went from 43 to 60 data scientists while Microsoft went from 49 to 123 -- an increase of 151%.

The backgrounds and education levels of data scientists

In analyzing 27,000 education records, we found that 12% of data scientists did not list any degree. Of those who listed a degree, 42% reported earning a Master’s.

And it’s not just senior-level team members who possess advanced education. Similar densities of graduate degrees exist across junior, senior, and chief data scientists as well.

Those that earned a graduate degree tended to come from STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) backgrounds.

What this means

These numbers are going to change as the need for more and more data scientists pushes more individuals through academia and into the professional world.

According to Feyzi Bagirov’s article Data Science Education: Where It Needs To Begin, “last September, there were more than 120 analytics and data science programs being offered in the U.S.” More and more universities around the country are offering data science degrees aimed at teaching individuals aspects of computer science, statistics, and machine learning.

For now, we’ll have to see how this new crop of data scientists affect the field and change our understanding of what makes up a data scientist.

If you’d like to learn more about how we did our analysis and read through more charts including the top 25 skills of data scientists, check out The State of Data Science.