Perhaps my sample is a bit off, but I haven't seen economic evidence for a demand for data scientists. The wages just aren't competitive with writing code at big corporations. Academic labs in particular seem to harbor a bizarre belief that they can hire and retain good people at enormous pay cuts.
Data scientists have big opportunities in tech startups. Data scientists create that magic spark to give a fragile startup a strong competitive advantage, and share in the upside. Many many startups are trying to learn how to build a data science team.
Trevor Hastie at Stanford told me that Google revolutionized the outlook for stats PhDs. Prior to Google, statistics was an important field but jobs were scarce, and at places like research labs. But since Google taught the world where the magic lies, Stanford stats grads are inundated with offers from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo - and most importantly - countless startups.
Many of the best data scientists I have met studied physics. After the dry complex problems they have faced, commercial applications are human, exciting, straightforward, and a way to make an impact. (yes all our basic advances came from physicists doing physics. Im just saying Data Science could be a great alternative for some people).
I know that I'm biased, so take this with a grain of salt, but tech startups can be an exciting place for a data scientist, where you can make a major impact on the financial success of the business and share in that success.
Happy to give anyone specific suggestions via email.
