Data has been collected ever since the first businesses opened their doors, governments began conducting censuses, and organizations tried to learn more about their members or the people they served. But the emergence of large mainframe computers in the 1950s, the creation of the first database management system by Charles Bachman at General Electric in 1961, the invention of the first relational database by Edgar Codd of IBM in 1969, the introduction of personal computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the emergence of the World Wide Web in 1989, and the development of the Internet of Things (everyday objects with sensors that allow them to connect to the Internet and automatically record, report, and receive data) in the late 1990s fueled a massive increase in the amount of data that was collected and the sophistication of the digital databases and warehouses that were used to store this information. As a result, demand has grown for skilled specialists to design, develop, and manage data warehouses. The need for data warehousing specialists is expected to continue as the amount of data that is collected grows at jaw-dropping rates. In fact, the global market intelligence firm IDC reports that the amount of data on the planet is expected to grow 10-fold from 2014 to 2020—increasing from 4.4 zettabytes to 44 zettabytes. (One zetabyte is the equivalent of 180 million Libraries of Congress; the Library of Congress holds about 29 million volumes.)
- Biometrics Systems Specialists
- Chief Information Officers
- Clinical Data Managers
- Computer and Office Machine Service Technicians
- Computer Network Administrators
- Computer Programmers
- Computer Support Service Owners
- Computer Support Specialists
- Computer Systems Programmer/Analysts
- Computer Trainers
- Data Processing Technicians
- Data Scientists
- Database Specialists
- Digital Agents
- Document Management Specialists
- Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Electrical Engineering Technologists
- Electronics Engineering Technicians
- Electronics Service Technicians
- Embedded Systems Engineers
- Fiber Optics Technicians
- Futurists
- Graphic Designers
- Graphics Programmers
- Hardware Engineers
- Information Assurance Analysts
- Information Security Analysts
- Information Technology Consultants
- Information Technology Project Managers
- Mathematicians
- Microelectronics Technicians
- Semiconductor Technicians
- Software Application Developers
- Software Designers
- Software Engineers
- Software Quality Assurance Testers
- Solutions Architects
- Systems Setup Specialists
- Technical Support Specialists
- Technical Writers and Editors
- Wireless Service Technicians