Who's Working in Big Data Nowadays?

It's not often I get to give the nod to a sister publication, but GoCertify family member Certification Magazine has a great story about Big Data that posted earlier this week. Because this is an area I've covered (and continue to cover) regularly, I was more than ordinarily interested to read what the story has to report. I'm pleased to say I learned a thing or two, had some hitherto unsubstantiated suspicions confirmed, and generally enjoyed myself immensely. Maybe you might want to do likewise?

The story is titled Salary Survey PLUS: Who goes there in the Big Data realm? and it reports data originally published in the Spring Edition of Certification Magazine, which includes the results of a special Salary Survey focused in on the white hot, fast-growing and high-demand area of Big Data. Also known as data analytics and business intelligence (BI), Big Data is all about the reams (and realms) of data that companies routinely collect about their sales, activities, customers, logistics and so forth — which explains why another synonym for data analysis common in the field is the apt "data mining."

Whatever you call it, it's turning into an important tool that companies — mostly bigger ones, but lots of small-to-medium outfits are starting to get into this game, too — can use to stand apart from their competition. And also use to get closer to their customers, by becoming ever more attuned to the nuances of consumers' behavior, choices, likes and dislikes.

Here are some interesting stats from the CertMag story, which I'll follow with pointers to some Big Data certifications for you to ponder chasing, if this sort of thing is of actual or potential interest to you:

1) Education is a big factor in Big Data: 47.4 percent of Big Data professionals have a bachelor's degree, while 42.8 percent claim a master's degree. I'd guess the number of Ph.Ds in this field (they are still pretty scarce) didn't register on the survey.

2) A notable number of Big Data workers have been around IT for some time: 61 percent have been working in Big Data for 5 years or less, but 18 percent have been doing the Big Data thing for 15 years or more.

3) The biggest age range for Big Data professionals, claiming 58 percent of those surveyed, runs between the ages of 35 and 64. An additional 37 percent of Big Data workers fall in the range between 25 and 34 years of age.

4) Big Data workers tend to be employed at larger organizations: 23 percent work at companies with between 1,000 and 10,000 employees, and 43.3 percent work at companies with 10,000 employees or more.

5) There's a nice chart with a breakdown by industry sector in the afore-linked story, which shows that business services/consulting, computer or network consulting, and data storage or processing are the top three Big Data consumers by industry sector. From the standpoint of job titles for those who do Big Data stuff, the top three are Data Analysis, Data Application Management, and Data Management Solutions.

There's still lots of opportunity for IT Pros in this fast-growing sector, so interested readers will want to check out my Tom's IT Pro story titled Best Big Data Certifications for 2015, where you'll learn more about leading certs in that IT niche. Just for the record, the top 5 in that list are:

1. HP Vertica Big Data Solutions

2. Cloudera Certified Professional: Data Scientist

3. EMC Data Science Associate

4. Oracle Business Intelligence Certification

5. SAS Business Intelligence Certifications

All of these credentials (or programs) fall nicely under the Big Data umbrella and should be worth checking out, depending on what kind of platform allegiances are present in your current (or next) employer's IT infrastructure. Dig in, learn a lot, have fun, get certified and boost your career!