by Angela Guess

Cybele Weisser recently wrote in MSN.com, “In this complex, fast-changing job market, just putting in the hours and being good at what you do may not be enough. You need an edge. And the surest one these days is to possess the skills that are most in demand in your field, that help your employer keep up with the technological, economic, and social forces that are transforming so many industries… To provide that critical insight, MONEY and compensation data and software company PayScale.com teamed up to develop a unique new analysis of the skills that employers place the highest value on now.”

Weisser continues, “Across a variety of fields, workers earn more when they can make sense of the exponentially more complex data now available about the markets their employers serve. Although companies have long tracked information about customers, sales, and suppliers, businesses today have access to a far richer vein of information… Thanks to massive improvements in the software that collects, stores, and integrates data, companies can use this information to do things like target new customers, improve service, and offer more personalized products—as long as they employ folks who understand how to organize, analyze, and apply it.”

Weisser goes on, “Enter the data maven. ‘Mainstream American companies have come to realize that in order to become more effective in the marketplace, they need to analyze data,’ says Matt Sigelman, the CEO of Burning Glass Technologies, which analyzes job listing information. ‘And we’re seeing those skills showing up at a premium in a variety of industries, including marketing, logistics jobs, and operations management jobs, just to name a few.’ Top data skills and their average pay boost: SAS (Statistical Analysis System): +6.1%; Data Mining/Data Warehousing: +5.1%; Data Modeling: +5%.”

See the full list of most valuable career skills here.

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