Why should you hire a mathematician?

This autumn will see the launch of the Alan Turing Institute, the National Institute for the development and use of advanced mathematics, computer science and algorithms. It will provide the focus for innovation in data science and will bring together government, academia and industry to focus their attentions on driving real and lasting value from data.

When Alastair Denniston was assembling the crack team of mathematicians for Bletchley Park in 1939 that included Turing, no one quite knew what was ahead of them. No one had answers, partly because the questions weren’t yet obvious. No one could have predicted how much of an unintended legacy their work would leave behind.

The mathematician’s success at Bletchley came from their discipline, their attention to detail, their love for solving problems and, above all, their resilience.

Resilience is one of the key traits of a mathematician and one that makes them invaluable in the workplace.   

Some mathematicians are lucky enough to use advanced mathematics methods every day in their job. I’m one of those lucky ones, as I get to apply novel techniques in probability, graph theory and optimisation to help businesses understand where to spend their marketing budget and how to get more for less from their advertising campaigns. I also get the chance to provide some input to the Alan Turing Institute will help the UK’s commercial organisations build better algorithms, use larger data sets more smartly and find answers to previously unknown questions. 

Innovation and creativity is crucial to my day-to-day activity. The problems I’m expected to solve each day don’t have clear cut answers and there isn’t a well defined textbook I can use to find the answer. I need to use my skill as a mathematician to guide me in my search for the truth and for insight that can power the next big TV advertising campaign.

Without data, creative is just art.

Mathematics and Creativity go hand in hand: without data, creative is just art and I’m proud to be part of a growing group of mathematicians fuelling the advertising industry with amazing insight which our creative colleagues can use to build better campaigns.   Some of the questions I'm currently working on are:

• How do you classify hundreds of millions of tweets to understand why some celebrities get more retweets than others?
• How do you ensure that the behaviour of a Twitter audience is understood in enough detail to be able you to change your marketing strategy to produce content which appeals only to them?
• In a world full of noise, who is the most influential person you can work with as a brand and who are the brand advocates you should invest time and effort in forming a relationship with?
• How do we measure a true ROI figure from social media marketing activity?

Not every industrial mathematician gets to wield their analytical skills in such innovative and creative ways. However, the skills of a mathematician are in hot demand across a range of sectors because the traits that make them a good mathematician make them a great addition to your team.

The mathematician who has put many hours into a proof to show how a physical process works, or who has proved beyond doubt the pounds and pence impact of their company’s latest marketing campaign, is unlikely to have done that in one attempt. They will have tried a number of different approaches, techniques and will have learnt valuable lessons throughout each iteration. 

This resilience teaches mathematicians to remain calm and focused during crises; they are able to cope well with adversity, and are open to learning valuable lessons from their experience. Above all, they learn from their mistakes and see the journey as an essential part of the overall problem solving process. The mathematician’s resilience gives that individual a great toolkit to deal with change and stress in the workplace.

A talented mathematician will have a well-honed set of problem-solving skills. These skills will have been developed with problems that are not the ones you’ll find on the puzzle page of the morning paper. These are the problems that have yet to be solved by your peers and whose answers will have you searching in the most unlikely of places.   This voyage into the “dark” trains the talented mathematician to think differently and to look for solutions in places that others would ignore. It gives the mathematician a crucial advantage when we need to look at a problem with a different perspective.

Even when you’re not expecting them to find a cure for cancer, or analyse 200 million tweets in real time, these problem-solving skills are an extremely valuable addition to any team, especially if you need some alternative ways to think about a problem.

Mathematicians have traditionally left University and headed for the world of finance, insurance or teaching. In the 21st century the future for mathematicians looks a little different. Many students will still head for the city but an increasing number will head for the world of data science, where they can use their problem solving skills and resilience to unlock the value from the next big business revolution, where there are plenty of unsolved problems for the mathematicians to solve.

Some of these mathematicians will specialise as data scientists and will be involved in life changing innovation similar to that which Alan Turing helped to create in the 1940s. Others will simply provide the mathematical firepower needed for whatever challenging problem you set them.

The next revolution will focus on intelligently connecting data analytics to business strategy in a way that takes the guesswork out of decision-making and it needs an army of mathematicians, doing very different jobs, to make that happen.

Key to all of this will be a unique set of individuals, a blend of mathematical ability, programming skill, business experience and the ability to tell stories from the data they analyse. These individuals are in huge demand in many sectors. These individuals are mathematicians and Turing’s legacy will ensure that these individuals contribute a great deal to the UK and global economy in years to come.  It's going to be an amazing journey and I'm proud to play my part.

Image Credit: Image of Bletchley Park by Magnus Manske. used with a creative commons licence.