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Statistics as a Career

From the Science editorial Why Statistics? of 6 April 2012:

“Statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty; and it thereby provides the navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances. This field will become ever more critical as academia, businesses, and governments rely increasingly on data-driven decisions, expanding the demand for statistics expertise.”

From the New York Times story For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics of 6 August 2009:

“the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians”

Career Information

• Career Center. An excellent guide to careers in statistics. American Statistical Association.
• Careers. Brochures on careers in statistics compiled by the Education Committee of the Royal Statistical Society.
• Careers involving probability and statistics. University of Texas.
• What is Statistics? Case studies, short stories and example jobs from the Statistical Consulting Centre, University of Melbourne.

• Where do NZ Statisticians Work?. A compilation of responses from a number of major employers, by Murray Jorgensen, University of Waikato. From the ANZStat mailing list.

Statistics Careers in Australia

There is currently a very marked shortage of professional statisticians across a range of disciplines in Australia. The hottest areas are biostatistics/bioinformatics and financial modelling, but more traditional areas such as survey designs are also feeling the pinch. Advertisements for biostatisticians are going unfilled for a long time. The methodology division of the Bureau of Statistics reports that the output of honours graduates in statistics is no longer sufficient to fill its annual recruitment needs. The need for statisticians is more recognized than even before in Australia and there are far more employment opportunities than ever before. There are several jobs for every honours graduate that Australia is producing. It is very difficult to understand why the number of graduate statisticians being produced by Australian universities is decreasing rather than increasing.

Some idea of the range of employers in Australia and NZ can be had by browsing the recent job announcements. The job announcements site also allows you to search for all jobs over the past couple of years advertised by a particular employer.

General Resources

• Fishing on the Bay. A blog of statistical musings from an Australian perspective.
• Tomorrow's Professor. Advice and information for students beginning their academic career in science and engineering. Stanford University Learning Laboratory.
• PhDs.org. Essays and resources on the current job market for mathematicians and academics in general. Advocacy for working conditions for early career researchers. Sobering reading. Geoff Davis, Dartmouth College.