a title recently thrown around a lot for positions that used to be called "data analyst" Agreed. Maybe this is different in different markets but in London the

a title recently thrown around a lot for positions that used to be called "data analyst" Agreed. Maybe this is different in different markets but in London the vast majority of "data scientist" positions advertised are really PowerBI, Excel, etc. If there is any ML it is just to feed data into a black box model. If you were both smart and lucky you might be able to sneak R in by the backdoor and start doing actual data science, but it would be an uphill battle.