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techUK's 'Big Data Hero' campaign highlights Big Data leaders in the UK as part of our work to address the Big Data skills gap.

techUK's 'Big Data Hero' campaign continues to champion Big Data leaders in the UK that are working hard to ensure the UK can fully realise the benefits of Big Data and Data Analytics.

techUK's campaign highlights the people that are making a difference and asking them what made them choose this career, how they got there, what their typical day involves and what they most enjoy about their work. We will also be enquiring about the future of the industry and what advice they would give to people considering a career in Big Data and Data Analytics, in light of the current Big Data skills gap in the UK.

This campaign will feed into the work of techUK's Big Data Skills Working Group, which will be looking at ways to reduce the Big Data skills gap.

A new techUK 'Big Data Hero' will be chosen every month, so if you would like to nominate a friend or colleague to be the next 'Big Data Hero' please dropJeremy Lilley a line with a bit of information about them!

June's Big Data Hero - Katie Russell, Head of Data Science, ONZO

Congratulations to June's techUK 'Big Data Hero' - Katie Russell, Head of Data Science, ONZO.

Read on for a little taster and find the full interview below.

What is your current role and what are your responsibilities?

Within my role as head of data science, my primary goal is to develop new insights from energy data, which are the core of a genuinely valuable and different solution for the market.

What do you think the future holds for Big Data?

There is the classic Internet of Things story, and I think it’s right, but I’m increasingly excited by the idea of the Internet of People.

What needs to be done to inspire people to pursue careers in big data?

I think a lot of people are excited about pursuing a career in data science, and so that market is really buoyant, at least from what I see in London. But there’s a gap in some big data careers which are adjacent, e.g. dedicated Scala Engineers, Data Engineers, DevOps Engineers. They’re genuinely interesting and exciting roles, but people need to talk about why they’re exciting.

Katie gave more detailed answers to these and other questions which you can read by clicking below.

KATIE RUSSELL BIG DATA HERO (PDF)