Should you be learning R? We reviewed the 100 latest health economics jobs on EuropeanHealthEconomics .com. It’s clear that R is becoming increasingly important for health economists. R skills were required in 15% of health economics job adverts.
Interestingly, more than half of these job ads did not mention any software skills. This likely reflects that many of the job ads are compiled by HR personnel and managers who are not health economists themselves.
If we focus on those roles that did mention software, R skills were a prerequisite in 26% of them. So, if you thought that R is a niche, not so important, open-source alternative, these percentages should make you reconsider your opinion.
Learning R will improve your career prospects as a health economist. Having R skills on your CV will make you stand out from the crowd, as the vast majority of health economists are not proficient in R.
If you’re interested in learning R and improving your career prospects as a health economist, there are many highly-rated R courses available online. One of the best courses, with 4.7 star rating and over 14,000 enrolments, is the Data Analysis with R Specialization by the Duke university.
If you are looking for a shorter course to get stared you may want to look R Programming A-Z: R For Data Science.