Data Stewards gesucht? Eine empirische Untersuchung der Arbeitsmarktsituation und des Berufsprofils im deutschsprachigen Raum

Maria Guseva

doi:10.31263/voebm.v79i1.10446

Authors

Maria Guseva University of Vienna, Library and Archives

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31263/voebm.v79i1.10446

Keywords:

data steward, data stewardship, research data management, labour market, Shared RDM Services & Infrastructure

Abstract

Data stewardship has emerged in recent years as a new professional field. With specialized expertise in research data management (RDM), Data Stewards serve as a bridge between research and infrastructure and contribute significantly to the sustainable embedding of this field within research institutions. The article analyses job advertisements for Data Stewards and related positions in the German-speaking region in order to explore the current labour market situation, as well as actual requirements, job profiles, and working conditions. An introductory excursus into the state of research examined the use of job advertisements as a methodological approach as well as the resulting concrete findings. For this article, a systematic collection of job advertisements was conducted via job portals in the library and academic sectors in German-speaking countries between August 2024 and September 2025. This resulted in a corpus of 71 job advertisements, which was subsequently included in the in-depth analysis. To provide a more accurate representation of labour market realities, this corpus was differentiated into positions that largely corresponded to the Data Steward profile and those featuring a combination of Data Steward duties and additional responsibilities. Particular consideration was given to positions including Data Steward tasks but primarily focusing on coordination or leadership in research data management and Open Science. The investigation addressed job profiles, competency profiles, and employment conditions. The study was conducted as part of the project „Shared RDM Services & Infrastructure“ (2023–2026).

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