The last 12 months have seen big data become a versatile player in industries all across the spectrum. That trend is expected to continue in 2015 with big data increasingly mingling with the “Internet of Things.”
The two titans of technology are expected to become more intertwined in the coming year with the hopes of making your connected devices more tailored to your needs.
And with that comes a need for people who are qualified to sort through all that data and make sense of it all.
In the last year, there was a 123.6% increase in information technology project managers. But that’s just the beginning.
As the lines blur between industries, data analytics skills are becoming more and more valuable.
So where will the big-data jobs be in 2015?
There are five industries that have taken the lead: professional, scientific and technical services (27.14%); information technologies (18.89%); manufacturing (12.35%); retail trade (9.62%); and sustainability, waste management and redemptive services (8.20%) according to Wanted Analytics.
In the past, these jobs have been difficult to fill because of the specialized nature, but that may be changing.
“As data becomes more accessible and analytic tools become easier to use and readily available, data science won’t be limited to those in the technology sector,” Jeff Bertolucci of Information Week predicts. “In 2015, anyone with the right tools can draw powerful insights from data.”
This means that you may not have to spend as much time in school to take advantage of the high demand for talent.
“Data scientists’ skillsets will be vastly different, especially as the ability to code will be less of a job requirement,” Lukas Biewald, CEO and cofounder of CrowdFlower, a data-mining and crowdsourcing service said. “Data scientists should take a page out of anthropology and understand that qualitative information can also provide answers to questions you didn’t know you had.”
With an abundance of jobs and a median salary of $103,000 per year, and with other industries dying, making these jobs more accessible to the unemployed could be a big boost for the economy in 2015.
