Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a major technological movement. Many new companies are emerging specialising in AI, in addition to which a wide range of existing companies are beginning to realise how AI can benefit them internally as well as improve their products/customer offering.
According to a report from leading research and advisory company Gartner, the AI industry is expected to become a ‘net job creator’ by 2020 [1].
With this in mind, there is currently a high demand for people with the skills to develop AI and to come up with ways to use it to improve business practices and products. Demand for AI skills has more than doubled over the last three years [2].
Listed below are 10 of the most currently in-demand AI skills:
1. Machine learning – experience in this field is highly sought after. Machine learning is essentially a field of computer science where statistical techniques are used to give machines the ability to learn and take actions without explicit instructions.
2. Python – experience of using this programming language is desirable in the AI field. Python is a popular choice for AI projects because it requires less code than other languages; it already has a number of prebuilt libraries, and it is open source and flexible.
3. R – an alternative language to Python, R is designed primarily to deal with statistics and data analysis, making it a popular choice for AI projects.
4. Data science – a good grounding in data science is a key skill for most AI roles. Data Scientists go deep into the data to seek out insight, patterns and understand complex behaviours.
5. Hadoop – familiarity with this set of open source programs and procedures is a sought-after skill in many AI roles.
6. Big data – knowledge of the concept and significance of big data, how it works, and how it can be utilised is a key requirement of many roles in the AI sphere.
7. Java – the most widely-used computer programming language in the world, Java experience and knowledge is always welcomed.
8. Data mining – some experience in data mining and knowledge of its role in the big picture and how it feeds into the AI process is often required for AI roles.
9. Spark – Apache Spark is a widely used open-source tool for machine learning. Experience with this tool is beneficial to anyone wanting to work in AI – especially data-focused individuals.
10. SAS – knowledge of this BI tool that enables in-depth analysis, reporting, projective modelling, and more, is a bonus when looking for AI roles.
AI most common job titles
Amongst the most in-demand AI jobs are Computer Vision Engineer, R&D Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, and Data Scientist.
