In the past few years we’ve produced more data than in the whole of human history. The volume and dynamic nature of the data is changing not only how we live our lives, but how we do our jobs.

Why does this data explosion matter to you?

Data can reveal patterns and regularities that allow us to predict anything from what people want to buy, to what creates customer loyalty, where crimes are most likely to occur, to your possible future healthcare needs. All industries can benefit from the potential insights big data can reveal.

Given this, organisations are looking for staff who know how to mine data and examine it to extract useful information. We’re seeing a rise in new roles such as “data scientists”, as well as greater demand to fill positions outside the norm such as “devops”, which merges support and development. Marketing strategists in digital, with strong skills in data, search engine optimisation, analytics and real-time bidding, are also in demand.

If you want to be part of this data revolution and stand out from other candidates, it helps to have strong maths or statistical skills so that you can look at data from a mathematical perspective and spot trends and patterns. Experience with statistical tools is also beneficial.

You’ll need the ability to come up with new and ingenious ways to mine data and make predications from any data set. Knowing your way around Hadoop or Spark will be valuable too.

Importantly, you need to be able to keep your eye on the prize - step back from data and remember what to extract from it - otherwise your findings may not be useful or relevant.