R is an extremely powerful and lucrative language for data science, and as of 2018, it’s one of the most popular programming language choices for data science professionals.

R is an open-source programming language that’s widely used by data miners, statisticians, and data scientists to perform statistical computing as well as data analysis. Given R’s increasing popularity, R professionals are faced with plenty of career options and future possibilities.
Here are just a few examples of big companies using R for data analysis:

• Google uses open-source R for computing the returns on its advertising campaigns.
• Ford uses R to analyze the reports and feedback about its products and services.
• The U.S. National Weather Service makes use of R to predict flooding conditions.
• Social media platforms like Twitter use this programming tool for statistical computing.

With the rise of big data has come an increasing demand for data science experts who have sound knowledge of data-oriented languages like R language and can derive useful information from complex databases. Many of these professionals work in the fields of data management, data analysis, and data computation.

Why choose R?

Here are some reasons why you definitely need to pick up R if you already haven’t:

• It’s an open-source programming language. This means people from all over the world can contribute code on GitHub by developing R packages.
• It has all the statistical analysis tools you need. Data manipulation? Check. Data visualization? Plenty—charts, graphs, multi-panel lattice charts, custom graphics, and so much more. There’s absolutely no shortage of R packages to suit your needs.

When looking for a job, what criteria do you consider? In general, here are the top factors that professionals search for in a job profile:

• Good salary
• Trending opportunities
• Reliable future scope
• Easy and interesting

Guess what? R jobs satisfy all of these criteria! There is a minor caveat when it comes to the last point: working with R is interesting, but not easy. Don’t get discouraged! Persist in learning this powerful language, and you’ll position yourself as a valuable candidate in today’s job market.

Highest paying R jobs and their salaries

The R language has tremendous future scope. There’s extremely high demand for R jobs among startups and established organizations. Finance firms, retail businesses, banks, and even healthcare organizations are hiring skilled R candidates.

Surprisingly, there’s still a dearth of data science professionals in the job market. Big data is an industry that’s always in flux, and it’s more relevant now than ever.

Take look at the most trending R jobs and their salaries (data from Payscale):

1. Data Scientist—Average salary: $89,060

Data scientists identify the data-analytics problems that offer the greatest opportunities to an organization. Their responsibilities include:

• Identifying appropriate data sets and variables.
• Collecting large sets of structured and unstructured data from disparate sources.
• Cleaning and validating data to ensure accuracy, completeness, and uniformity.
• Devising and applying models and algorithms to mine big data.
• Analyzing data to identify patterns and trends.
• Interpreting data to discover solutions and opportunities.
• Communicating findings to stakeholders using visualization and other means.

Job satisfaction is usually high in this segment. Depending on the skills and experience, a data scientist can earn anywhere from $61K to $148 K. On average, data scientists in the U.S. earn $90K.

Wondering what it’s like to be a data scientist? 👉 Read more here.

2. Data analyst—Average salary: $61,271

The best-paying skills for data analysts are SAS, R, and Tableau. Data analysis is a stepping stone to leading careers like financial analyst, analytics manager, business analyst, finance controller, finance director, or even data scientist. In fact, data analysts are really just several steps away from becoming data scientists.

Learn more about what skills you need for data analysis, and find out how to attain them.

3. Statistician—Average salary: $71, 967

A statistician is a professional who analyzes data from various professional or business fields. Though their work can span a multitude of fields, statisticians can choose to specialize in certain fields. Their income varies from $49K to $111K.

4. Biostatistician—Average salary: $72, 247

Biostatisticians work with scientific teams to analyze and decipher statistical studies on biology-related topics. They prepare reports on these statistical studies and include all information regarding the theories and methods they used for future reference. Along with management and team skills, biostatisticians need good working knowledge of R to develop and analyze reports on statistical tables.

Sound like your kind of gig? Knowledge of statistics fundamentals equips you with a basic understanding of descriptive business data measures and probability distributions.

Looking for a career opportunity in data science? Learn R now.

Landing your dream IT job is never easy, but it’s also never too late to get started. Data science combines the best of technology with endless inspiration and pays a very generous salary.

If you’re a beginner, a great first step is learning the R language through credible online courses that can help you master the basics. Vertabelo Academy courses lay the foundation for a bright data science career with R, giving you ample hands-on experience and practice.

Best of all? These courses don’t require prior knowledge of programming. Try them all for free! Start learning R today, and take your data science skills to the next level.