5 reasons why a Big Data career is so hot in 2015, and beyond

As enterprises world over get constantly bombarded by large chunks of data, what they really need today is a pool of skilled professionals who can handle the various requirements of big data. Pursuing a career in Big data and analytics hence comes with a lot of advantages. Hefty pay checks, industry of your choice, numerous roles to choose from. What more can you ask for?

Here are the top 5 reasons why a big data career is a great choice:

1. The Big data market is growing leaps and bounds

A recent IDC forecast shows that the Big Data technology and services market will grow at a 26.4% compound annual growth rate to $41.5 billion through 2018, or about six times the growth rate of the overall information technology market.

Be it any vertical or domain, Big data has made its mark. Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Public sector are all riding high on big data and this is pretty much the beginning.

Higher the growth, bigger will be the opportunities.

2.  Soaring Demand for Big Data Professionals

Big data opportunities are growing leaps and bounds. This is creating a whopping demand for professionals with the right Data and analytics skills. According to HorizonWatch 2015 report, this year will see increased demand for data scientists who can make sense of the data coming in from mobile, social and IoT sensing technologies that require resetting the design and architecture of applications and user interface.

The number of job posting relating to Big data and analytics is growing significantly. If globally this is the scene, India is also not far behind as the country has major Big data hubs coming up, especially in cities like Bangalore and Delhi.

3. Acute Skill Gap

According to IDC predictions on Big Data, shortage of skilled staff will persist. In the U.S. alone there will be 181,000 deep analytics roles in 2018 and five times that many positions requiring related skills in data management and interpretation. India presents a huge market for Big Data, yet it faces a severe shortage of skilled big data professionals at present.

 Which means the available set of big data professionals with the right skill sets will be highly sought after.

Analytics India Salary Study 2015

4. Attractive Pay Checks

In any economy, the general rule is - if demand exceeds supply, the price will tend to be high. This holds true in case of big data professionals in the job market. As organizations try hard to acquire Big Data capabilities in every possible way, not only will they be sought after by organizations across domains, the best talents will be lured with hefty pay checks as well.

According to Wanted Analytics, the median salary for professionals with big data expertise in the US is $103,000 a year. India isn’t too far behind in attracting and retaining big data talents. According to Jigsaw Academy’s Salary report 2014 for the Indian Analytics Industry, in five years Data Analysts in India earn thrice what they start with. And the average analytics salary in India is around Rs 11 hundred thousand.  This should be even higher now and in the days to come.

5. A Plethora of Choices

Both in terms of industry as well as the nature of job, Big data provides a vast pool of options for interested candidates to choose from. Data Scientist is a highly-valued position in the big data space and is often touted as the sexiest job of the 21 st century.

Other popular job titles are Big Data Solution Architect, Linux Systems and Big Data Engineer, Big Data Platform Engineer, Lead Software Engineer, Big Data (Java, Hadoop, SQL) among others.