The lines between analytics and data science can definitely be very blurry. Different companies might call the same position by two different names, but at their core, they do have some differences.

Below is an infographic from the faculty of the Online MS in Analytics at American University. I think the infographic is accurate.

In my opinion, a true data scientist should spend more time creating and programming new algorithms while a business analyst should spend more time applying existing algorithms.



A couple of notes

Years of Education are not much different, but the academic disciplines are very different. Data Scientists tend to have degrees with more rigorous mathematical training. For me, this is the biggest differentiator. It appears financial institutions prefer business analysts while the government and colleges prefers data scientists Surprisingly, Business analyst jobs are projected to grow faster than data scientists (27% to 15%), not sure I totally agree with that!

Know Of Other Differences?

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