@taxidriver

From your post, it looks like that you already have a good job in a non technical field, probably on a business side. Not sure why you want to change your carrier (money , growth , something else, or just because you tired of your day job).

if you want to switch your carrier just because you are bored with your current job, then switching carrier won't help you much. because after few years you will get bored on IT too unless you have very strong interest to learn something new everyday.

Having said that if you have decided to go into the IT field, you can go into one of the following category :

1) Business Analysts (BA) - Hybrid of tech and non tech fields. means depending on your task you might have to do some technical on very basic level (like sql query, or understand a small chunk of java code to write requirements and so on) and communicate with business people. mostly this position is for people with non technical background.

2) Quality analyst (QA) - again hybrid of tech and non tech but mostly it falls under tech category (if your job role is on automation then you might have to write automation scripts). if you get a job with a manual testing then understanding of simple applications(word , excel) will be good enough. It all depends on the job requirement.

3) Developer - Pure technical , you will communicate with BAs to understand the requirements and code accordingly. This includes programmers (java, .net ) , database developers (sql,oracle) and also includes ETL devlopers (informatica and so on ) . The main thing is that you have to updates yourself constantly with new requirements, means you will learn something new everyday.

Now, regarding job growth in future - I will say developer (it could be anything), programming or database. These technologies are not going to fade out soon. Once you learn one programming language and then switching to the new one is really easy. Most developers know 2 or 3 languages along with database development. As a matter of fact having a good knowledge of database is a requirement for developers.


Also, please also consider that if you go through consultancy its not a full time job. means that if you are in a project then they will pay you. the moment you loose your job they will stop paying you. Most of them will pay on hourly basis, Unless big consulting companies hire you as a full time employee. I am mentioning this point because I don't know whether or not you need a monthly stable cash flow (in case you have house morgatage, car payments and so on ). Plus bear in mind that frequent travel is very much required. means you will work in one project for few months or a year in one project then move to the different state for another project.

do you think there will be enough database jobs in the future because of bigdata ?

yes, IT jobs will be there forever unless something more powerful than IT replaces IT in future. I mentioned IT jobs because once you know one technology you can update yourself with a new one in a very short time period.

Where should you go from here?

First decide, which position you want to go for. is it BA , QA or technical field ? If it is technical which one you want to take? programmer (.net ,java) or database developer. please keep in mind that most programmers know database development too. :).

I can't recommend you to go to any consultancy ( First of all I don't know any because I am dishwasher and also I don't like that they make fake resume.)  but  If you decided to go to a consultancy they will boost up your resume (yes they will put some fraud experience in your resume). Just want to mention this so that you know.