SAS is Alive and in Demand

SAS used to have a strong hold on the entire market of data science and predictive analysis at one point in the past. Those days are gone and the market is shared between SAS, R and Python. R has proved itself as a handy programming language for data scientists and Python is coming up as a highly popular language. So, does this mean that SAS is superseded? A lot of people would argue that SAS is history but the job market should suggest otherwise. Even if we ignore all the features and the increased amount of security that SAS provides with, the sheer demand in the market should push us to believe in SAS.

SAS skills are among the top professional skills around the world

There was a survey in 2016 involving 54million employees across 350 industries to find out the most valuable skills. SAS skills topped the list. With predictive analysis taking over the world one cannot just ignore SAS. 41% of all predictive analysis professionals prefer SAS to any other language. The data science market is somewhat taken by R and Python but SAS still has a considerable number of superlative clients. You actually need to know SAS in order to compete for the higher job roles and for a bigger salary.

SAS has nearly 85000 client sites around the globe so the current demand of SAS professionals should not come as a surprise to you.

The Pay hike

SAS skills can help you get almost an assured pay hike which may amount between 6% and 10%. Skills like data mining and data modelling can also add a lot of value to your resume and these can be done with SAS too.

Finance and Healthcare

These are two industries where SAS has an unmatched domination. The reason is pretty simple – Financial services and healthcare both require a fair amount of security and reliability. SAS can boast of these qualities more loudly than any other in the market. SAS enjoys a superior position with 45-50% of the market belonging to it. Over all it has hold of around 30% of the whole market.

Who prefers SAS?

It is seen that SAS has most old timers as its fan. There are people who come from the age when SAS was the only way and they were happy to have it this way. The current students have somewhat shown their backs to SAS’s policies. But a fair bit of the industry is still carrying on with SAS. People with experience of more than 15 years are totally in love with SAS. It is very hard to make any old timer believe that there can be anything better than SAS.

Another funny detail about this is that the PhD scholars have somewhat abandoned SAS while the fresh graduates are inclined towards it. What it shows is that SAS is a tool that is directly related to the industry – it does not interest the research scholars as much as it attracts the businessmen.

SAS is growing from within

SAS as a company is moving towards greater integrity and more ease of application. The R&D team in SAS consists of top notch professionals and they are doing everything to make sure that it does not lose its current market. Whatever may the market research say SAS is and will continue to be the premium tool and the first preference when stakes are high.

As far as the Indian market is concerned –

One must understand that when it comes to data science or predictive analysis the Indian scenario is not too different from the global or Western scenario. Most Indian firms are handling projects for foreign companies. They often do not have a choice in this. The job portals are still filled with open positions for SAS programmers.

Learning SAS

The learning curve for SAS is a quite easy one. But it takes a good deal of time and practice to really get going with the software. You can avail SAS online training via any good institute. Learning at your own time and space is something that can keep you going. The lessons are usually instructor based or video based or both. Wherever you learn, there should be a fair amount of opportunity for practical experience. Experience is the strongest currency in the data industry so, never miss an opportunity to work on some project. If your statistical base is not poor then SAS online training should not be very hard for you to grasp.