Learn about the types of people who become data scientists. This page goes into detail about the employment, gender, and ethnic ratios of the workplace.
Employment Type Mix, 2024
84% of data scientists work in full-time roles while 16% work part-time.
Gender Mix By Career Interest, 2024
This graph shows the distribution of females and males that are interested in becoming a data scientist. Four or five star ratings on CareerExplorer indicate interest.
More men than women are interested in becoming data scientists at a ratio of 2.39 to 1.
Actual Gender Mix, 2024
38% of data scientists are female and 62% are male.
Gender Bias, 2024
This is one of the most compelling statistics we collect. Gender bias shows the difference between gender interest in being a data scientist and the actual gender mix of people in the career.
If there is a significant difference, then it means there is a gender imbalance between those interested in becoming a data scientist and those who end up becoming one.
In this case there are more men interested in becoming a data scientist than those actually working as one. It is hard to pinpoint the exact reasons why, but there are likely various forces at play, from changing interests over time to societal norms and biases.
Ethnic Mix, 2019
The largest ethnic group of data scientists are White, making up 45% of the population. The next highest segments are South Asian and East Asian, making up 21% and 16% respectively.