Big data is rapidly transforming business intelligence. Companies, governments, and education institutions are using it for many purposes including competition, innovation, productivity, consumer insights, and historical and transnational data. If sources are to be believed, some institutes have started offering Big Data Courses. Both professionals and newbie learners are looking for this training for their career betterment.
Big Data job roles have surfaced in the last few years alone that would not have been thought of ten years ago; data scientists, data architects, data visualizers, data, virtualization, and cloud specialists, to name but a few.
So it is fair to say that in another ten years from now there will be even more Big Data jobs that don’t exist today. So, how do prepare for the Big Data jobs explosion?
According to research by McKinsey’s Business Technology Office, a retailer using Big Data has the potential to increase its margin by 60%. However, they also believe that business leaders will struggle with the ramifications of Big Data.
As it continues to grow, so will the implications. Leaders will need to source more than just a handful of data managers to cope. But how will they manage to do this with a huge skill shortage?
Eron Kelly, general manager of product marketing for Microsoft SQL Server wrote in a blog recently “In the next five years, we’ll generate more data as humankind than we generated in the previous 5,000 years.”
As data volume increases, the demand for professionals to deal with this does also. Data and analytics skills are in very high demand in all industries without skilled workers, there will be fierce competition. Many businesses could struggle with this and some may even collapse.
According to Tullio Siragusa in a web conference recently “Companies who would not embrace social media and big data would no longer be within the business within 20 years.”
Big Data and analytics aren’t being taught in schools (just yet), so the skills gap will inevitably widen as the growth of Big Data and the lack of skills run in line with each other over time.
Over the next few years, there will be millions of data-related IT jobs according to the McKinsey Global Institute but there is an imposing worldwide shortage of the “analytical and managerial talent necessary to make the most of big data.”
In the next three years, the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that there will be a 25% increase in the need for workers trained in analytics. Also in the states, there is a 140,000 to 190,000 people shortage with the analytical skills needed at this moment in time.
It is estimated that there is a shortage of 1.5 million analysts with the Big Data skills necessary to understand the needs of the technology and make decisions based on this.
Many data scientists rPh.D.s require a PhD degree in statistics, CS, mathematics, or computer science. Yet without the skills already available and the inevitable increase in role types of role, there will be significant reorganizations of organizations.
This is causing great concern to leaders and now education institutes are looking at ways in which to deal with this impending problem.
Universities are already starting to broaden the data-related courses that they offer at both bachelor’s and master’s levels.
SAP and IBM are currently expanding their lists of academic partners from universities across the world and have been aggressive in their training in an attempt to cope with the demand for analytics professionals for this decade.
Many traditional database administrators will have to retrain and even these people will be in higher demand due to their underpinning knowledge of data as a whole.
The anticipated shortage of data scientists has prompted the question: “Should students start learning the precepts of big data in high school?”
Steve Mills, Senior VP at IBM said in a statement recently “… Our country must generation of experts who know how to corral today’s data deluge for world-changing insights.”
Many industry IT leaders and professionals believe that as the Big Data growth we are witnessing continues to rise, there is a definite need to increase training opportunities and the skill set of future generations.
This could very well mean that over the next few years, many more schools and colleges will be changing their curriculum to meet the demands of future jobs.
In the meantime, the search continues for many companies and recruiters to source the professionals who have the skills now for these very technical and niche roles.
I am working as a Trainer in Intellipaat which is providing different training and courses programs like Machine Learning Online Course, Salesforce Training, AWS Course, AI Course, etc.
