In the next three years, about 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support big data, but there is not enough talent in the industry.
Global IT spending is forecast to surpass $3.7 trillion in 2013, a 3.8 per cent increase from the 2012 projected spending of $3.6 trillion, according to a study by research and analyst firm Gartner. Big data is a collection of large and complex data which is difficult to process using on-hand database management tools.
"By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data, generating 1.9 million IT jobs in the US. In addition, every big data-related role in the US will create employment for three people outside of IT, so over the next four years a total of 6 million jobs in the US will be generated by the information economy,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior Vice-President and global head of research at Gartner.
“But there is a challenge. There is not enough talent in the industry. Our public and private education systems are failing us. Therefore, only one-third of the IT jobs will be filled. Data experts will be a scarce, valuable commodity,” Sondergaard said.
“IT leaders will need immediate focus on how their organisation develops and attracts the skills required. These jobs will be needed to grow your business. These jobs are the future of the new information economy,” he added.
By tapping a continual stream of information from internal and external sources, businesses have an endless array of new opportunities for transforming decision-making; discovering new insights; optimising the business; and innovating their industries.
Big data creates a new layer in the economy which is all about information, turning information or data into revenue. This will accelerate growth in the global economy and create jobs.
“Big data is about looking ahead, beyond what everybody else sees,” Sondergaard said. “You need to understand how to deal with hybrid data, meaning the combination of structured and unstructured data, and how you shine a light on ‘dark data.’
“Dark data is the data being collected but going unused despite its value. Leading organisations of the future will be distinguished by the quality of their predictive algorithms. This is the CIO challenge, and opportunity.”