Postings seeking big data and analytics professionals have more than quadrupled over the past year, according to technology jobs site Dice.

And a majority of hiring managers surveyed by Dice exclusively for Data Informed expects demand for data analytics professionals to continue growing in 2013.

“We’re seeing big data is a big deal for hiring managers,” Alice Hill, managing director of Dice.com, said in an interview. “For big data as a category, year over year job postings are up 335 percent. That’s a pretty sizable increase.”

As part of its December Special Edition Hiring Survey, Dice asked more than 1,000 technology-focused hiring managers and recruiters about expected demand for data analytics professionals in 2013 relative to this year.

“From our hiring survey, 54 percent said demand for data analytics professionals would increase in 2013, so that’s a healthy majority expecting this area to grow next year,” Hill said.

How do you characterize anticipated demand in 2013 for data analytics professionals, as compared to 2012?
Answer options	Response percent
Demand will increase	54
No change in demand	21
Demand will decrease	4
I have no opinion	13
Not applicable	8
Source: Dice.com survey for Data Informed

Another 21 percent of survey respondents said they expected no change in demand for data analytics pros next year, while just 4 percent said they expected demand to decrease.

Hadoop skills were cited by 25 percent of respondents as the most frequently desired among big data professionals, by far the top category. Skills for MongoDB, the open-source database system, were listed second (at 11 percent), while natural language processing and Django, the Python-based open-source web application framework, each were cited by 8 percent of respondents as the most frequently desired skills related to big data.

Which skills are the most frequently desired for data analytics professionals? (Please select all that apply.)
Answer options	Response percent
Hadoop	25
MongoDB	11
Django	8
Natural language processing	8
HBase	5
MapReduce	5
Hive	4
Pig	3
Jetty	2
Zookeeper	2
Sqoop	1
No opinion	67
Source: Dice.com survey for Data Informed.

“Hadoop  broke our 1,000-job posting record in November and is up 70 percent year over year in December,” Hill says. “So that’s a good indicator that not only is big data and analytics as a whole growing, but we’re seeing specialized postings now start to break the 1,000-job mark.”

Hill says jobs for big data and analytics professionals are popping up everywhere.

“We’re seeing jobs all over the country and in different industries as well,” she says.

Christopher Nerney (cnerney@nerney.net) is a freelance writer in upstate New York. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisNerney.