Three ways to build an online income from your data skills
Across most of the world right now many people are losing access to their usual means of making income. The Coronavirus pandemic has led to the closing of vast swathes of industry meaning that many business owners are unable to trade and employees are being laid off or furloughed in large numbers.
In the UK, where I am based, a recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey of 6,171 businesses reported that 24% had temporarily closed and 93% had lower than expected turnover. In the US, 3.2 million people filed for unemployment insurance in the last week alone, bringing the total unemployment claims since the beginning of the pandemic to a whopping 33 million.
In the US, 3.2 million people filed for unemployment insurance in the last week alone
As a data scientist, I have personally been affected by this crisis having temporarily lost my current 9–5 role. I have found myself in a period of vast personal economic uncertainty, in a world where fewer companies are hiring, and many businesses are facing collapse.
I have found myself in a period of vast personal economic uncertainty, in a world where fewer companies are hiring, and many businesses are facing collapse
Over the last few weeks, I have been looking at ways to independently use my skills to create an additional income source that may, at least partially, provide some financial security for the future.
In the following article, I am going to share three key areas I have found to use my data skills online to create an additional income.
The added benefit of earning income in this way right now is that you can choose your hours to work around other commitments. This is especially helpful if, like me, you are also a parent whose children are currently unable to attend their school or another childcare setting.
Online Courses
If you have been working in the field of data then you have valuable skills and knowledge that others can learn from. There are many online platforms which allow anyone with the appropriate skills and experience to create and market online courses and earn an income.
Datacamp has a network of 270 instructors which you can apply to join. They state that they currently have an audience of over 5.9 million data scientists, and course instructors can earn royalties through their revenue sharing platform. The current FAQ’s on the website state that average monthly earnings for instructors are in the region of $1,000-$2,000.
I am currently in the application stages to become an instructor here and I will update this article with actual earnings data if I am successful.
If you don’t have luck with Datacamp or it doesn’t feel right for you there are many other online course platforms where you can make money. One of these is Pluralsight. This course platform recruits data experts to create video-based, written or hands-on educational material. Similarly to Datacamp, payment is based on royalties which are linked to the number of views that your content has achieved and the volume of paying subscribers the platform has. This excellent article by Troy Hunt gives some insight into working for Pluralsight including some information on earning potential.
There are a huge number of other places where you can publish online course content and earn money. These include course platforms such as Udemy and Skillshare. You might also consider publishing a series of tutorials on a social media platform such as Youtube where you could earn money from paid advertising.
Blogging
I have been blogging and earning a modest additional income through the Medium Partner Program for the past year and a half. As far as blogging platforms go Medium is probably the easiest to get started with and earn money from. You don’t necessarily need to have a large following, if your writing is interesting and of high quality, then it is possible for Medium to distribute it in tags from which you can gain a high number of views.
I currently earn around $400 a month and spend 5–10 hours a week writing, typically publishing once a week on the platform. I’ll be writing a follow-up article soon on how, when and why I write about data science on Medium.
An alternative to Medium is to host your own blog as a standalone website. Wordpress is a great platform for this. You can start a blog for free or you can pay for premium features such as a unique domain name and more storage. If you can get enough traffic to your blog there are a variety of ways to earn money including Google Adsense and affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates.
Freelance work
The final areas I will talk about in this article are freelance agencies and websites. There are a number of platforms online where you can offer your skills, experience and services in return for payment. Upwork is probably one of the most popular sites. Here you can create your profile and apply for freelance jobs.
A quick search for data-related jobs advertised right now reveal 16,744 results.
Hopefully, this article has given you a good starting point to find ways to use your data skills online to earn supplementary income. The economic impact of Coronavirus is going to be felt widely so you might find that when you start these initiatives that they don’t generate a significant income right away.
However, as various business sectors eventually begin to open back up I am confident that if you have created some foundations in these areas that you will see your earnings grow. The key, I believe, is to choose an area of focus, create consistently and build a profile for the future.
Thanks for reading!
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