GIS Community Insights 2020: Mandatory coding skills are named a major pain point of GIS specialists

Aspectum has published GIS a Community Survey

Aspectum, a cloud service for data analytics, has published the findings of its research on the overall situation in the GIS industry. The GIS Community Survey has become the first GIS people-centered report with the spotlight directed on industry specialists. The report highlights the professionals’ likes and dislikes, challenges they encounter, and their expectations. 

The survey, based on an extensive poll, is aimed at providing a better understanding of the current situation in the industry from within, as well as identifying obstacles that disable GIS advancement. Since the main engine behind the industry’s development is people, the report takes a closer look at GIS specialists of all levels, their pain points, and anticipations. The company reached more than 5000 specialists from EMEA, North America, and Asia Pacific working with data to help businesses make informed decisions. The survey focuses on four main aspects: Professionals, Current Situation, Future Trends, and Points to Improve.

First, the survey results shed light on what types of businesses utilize GIS tools. Geospatial data analysis and its visualization are applied in various businesses from large-scale companies to micro-entities. The GIS specialists vary depending on their functions from management to data quality coordinators. Lack of feedback has been identified as one of the main points that need to be improved. Over 10% of GIS Managers and Analysts do not receive any feedback on their results and about 20% are considering changing jobs or, furthermore, their professional field. At the same time, more than 15% of workers exceed the established 40 working hours a week. Additionally, the report explains the business views, tasks and apps, and how GIS professionals feel at work. 

2020 with its pandemic, nationwide lockdowns and economic recession threatened to affect the current situation in the industry. However, the survey reveals that the actual impact is less dramatic compared to the pessimistic projections. The responders have noted going online and simple map access as the key highlights of 2020. Unawareness has become the most troubling issue for GIS professionals. Team members and managing executives are trying to understand what exactly their GIS colleagues do. The contribution of geospatial data into business success is often undervalued and subsequently, GIS departments are underfunded. 

Next, the report looks at tools. The list of top main solutions used by the respondents comprises ESRI (65.6%), QGIS (22.07%), Mapinfo (1.6%), Smallworld (1.3%) and Carto (1.0%). Moreover, in this section of the survey, you can view the main and additional GIS tools, the anticipated price ranges, the major stressors of GIS tools, and what the specialists expect to see in the future. 

Finally, the survey dwells on responders’ predictions for the GIS future, mainly software and the professional community. The key expectations include being more user-friendly, more intuitive online tools and reliable cross-product integration. Also, in this section, the survey explains some disruptive factors. Cross-industry integration, ease of work, and online/cloud software are seen as the most important ones.

“We are delighted to know that the pandemic hasn’t critically reduced the demand for GIS by companies of all sizes. Also, we sincerely hope that the results presented in the Work attitude section will prompt team leaders to find ways to increase the motivation of their teammates” said Alexander Kryukov, CEO at Aspectum. 

You can download your copy here https://cutt.ly/gisresearch 

About Aspectum

Aspectum is a California-based company focused on providing high-quality visualization and powerful analytics for business outcomes. It offers digital solutions for improved data visualization through geographic information systems. Aspectum partners with leading companies across industries in North America and Europe for enhanced mapping that makes data more available and valuable.