A global talent shortage is “looming” according to a new report which found 78% of Australians believe their companies lack the skills necessary to reap the rewards of ‘big data’.

The Hudson Industry Leaders: Tackling the Big Data Challenge report found organisations are finding it difficult to hire and build competencies in the area.

Mark Steyn, chief executive Hudson Asia Pacific, said: “People who can blend deep technical expertise, business and analytical skills, an understanding of the market and the customer represent nirvana in terms of big data talent.”

“Unfortunately these individuals are in short supply. This presages a skills crisis of vast proportions and is forcing organisations to look outside the usual supply network for talent.”

Hudson has identified seven key functions that are required to build an effective data team: big data program leadership, data management, domain expertise, big data analysis, big data project management, campaign management and campaign assessment.

The hardest talent to find is the big data analyst who, according to Hudson, is: “Responsible for collecting and managing access to data stores, curating content, and orchestrating access to third party services delivering, for example, sentiment and social network analysis, the big data analyst probably requires competence using technical frameworks such as Hadoop and programming capability. Statistical, mathematical and data visualisation capabilities will also resonate.”