Gartner: Big Data Will Generate 6 Million U.S. Jobs by 2015

Gartner predicts that 4.4 million IT jobs will be created to support Big Data by 2015, with 1.9 million of them to be in the United States.

In addition, every Big Data-related role in the United States will create employment for three people outside of IT, pushing the total to 6 million U.S. jobs, Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of research, told those attending the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. He said:

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,” he said. “IT leaders will need immediate focus on how their organization 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.

Though I don’t follow Sondergaard’s math, we know there’s a shortage of analytics talent for Big Data and for engineering talent as well.

Data analytics increasingly is becoming an essential skill for managers. Manish Parashar, director of Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute, put it this way:

Your economic advantage depends on the data you have plus your ability to transform that data into meaningful insights … Industries nimble enough to interpret and use the data in new ways to add value are the leaders….

Traditional decision-making structures must be adapted to incorporate data scientists in business and research.

That was something a McKinsey report addressed a couple of years ago, saying:

The United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with analytical expertise and 1.5 million managers and analysts with the skills to understand and make decisions based on the analysis of big data.

My colleague Loraine Lawson previously wrote about the people required for Big Data implementations, starting with the CIO. It seems, though, that the various roles are still evolving.

A recent salary survey by Robert Half International predicts data will be one of the hottest areas of employment in the coming year. Its report delves into some of the Big Data roles and the projected salary growth for 2013. Among them:

• Data analyst/report writer, up 5.4 percent to a range of $64,250-$96,000
• Data architect, up 6.9 percent to a range of $104,250-$143,500
• Data modeler, up 7.6 percent, to $92,000-$126,750
• Data warehouse manager, up 7.4 percent, $108,750-$145,750
• Data warehouse analyst, up 6.3 percent, $93,500-$126,500
• Business intelligence analyst, up 7.3 percent, $94,250-$132,500