These Are The Soft Skills You Will Need As A Data Scientist in 2025

Image by Author | Canva

Trying to stand out in a truly over-saturated and continuously growing market can be very difficult. Over the past few years, our lives have changed from interacting with colleagues to moving fully remote and it can be difficult to connect with your colleagues but also be able to truly show your soft skills.

Things seem to be changing. We are slowly getting back to normality, with more and more organisations slowly creating a hybrid working environment so employees can show their soft skills as well as their technical skills.

Soft skills are tangible traits that bring employees together and work effectively as a team. Creativity and collaboration can be the key to success for many organisations.

As a data scientist, here are the essential soft skills that you will need.

Storytelling with Data

 
As the year 2025 approaches, it is no longer about the numbers and data. There will be a lot of decision-making processes that will heavily rely on these numbers however it is important to be able to communicate the narratives around these numbers.

This is where data storytelling comes into the picture. As a data scientist, you will need to be able to craft compelling stories around data that will help stakeholders understand their next move. Decision makers often lack technical expertise, therefore you need to be able to speak a language they can understand by:

• Data visualisations tools
• Aligning insights to business goals
• Speaking both technical and non-technical language

Collaboration

 
A great team makes the dream work. The data scientist’s life over the past few decades may have felt quite siloed, however over the years data scientists are collaborating more with software developers, marketing, and product teams.

Cross-functional teams are vital to the success of organisations, and to make it happen you will need the following:

• Building the bridge between the technical and non-technical teams
• Active collaboration through listening
• Understanding the organisation’s broad objectives

Ethical Decision Making

 
Ethical concerns around data are at the forefront of technology at the moment and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere in the year 2025.

With all of the laws and regulations that are coming out regarding the use and misuse of AI, more organisations need to be wary of the tools, technologies and outputs they are putting out there. To ensure you and your organisation are aligning with ethical practises, you should:

• Make you and your team aware of the ethical practices and how they can be implemented
• Commit to complete transparency and fairness in all that you do
• Evaluate your ethical processes

Continuous Learning

 
It seems like the world of data scientists consists of new learning. And depending on how you see it – unfortunately/fortunately that is exactly what it is. To keep your job secure and competitive in an already competitive market, you will need to ensure:

• Embrace continuously learning through e-learning platforms
• Learn and adopt new technologies and tools
• Subscribe to AI newsletters such as The AI Report to keep up to date

Wrapping Up

 
Short, sweet and simple but effective. When it comes to refining your current skills or learning new ones, you want to be able to tackle them bit by bit. Stayed tuned for more articles to get you ready for the year 2025
 
 

Nisha Arya is a data scientist, freelance technical writer, and an editor and community manager for KDnuggets. She is particularly interested in providing data science career advice or tutorials and theory-based knowledge around data science. Nisha covers a wide range of topics and wishes to explore the different ways artificial intelligence can benefit the longevity of human life. A keen learner, Nisha seeks to broaden her tech knowledge and writing skills, while helping guide others.