On one hand, the next five years don't seem too far away. Five years, that's a year more than most of us spent in high school or college. On the the other hand, 5 years ago was a long time in the computer world. Azure first gave us the ability to create a database, as opposed to just a key value store. SQL Server 2008 was the current version of the platform. SQL Saturday #26 was held the first weekend in October in Redmond. 8GB was the large size for flash drives and the iPad hadn't started the current tablet revolution. 

The world of data has grown dramatically in 5 years. Our cell phones and other devices are drastically changed the amount of data that is collected and consumed. Advances in bandwidth have almost removed the need for us to move all but the largest sizes of data without any physical media. If we look to the next five years, does anyone think they can accurately predict how much storage we'll maintain in our pockets or how fast we'll expect to move data on a daily basis?

I ran across a prediction of surprising things in the next five years, and while I'm not sure I think they will all come true, I do think that similar things will come to pass because of two things: amazing increases in computational power available to any individual and tremendous amounts of data. That's no great surprise, but I am excited. I can't help but think that there will be so many opportunities for data professionals that most of us will be gainfully employed for decades.

I do think, however, that the mundane, easy jobs of administering individual instances, checking logs and backups, and setting security will be few and far between. Unless you know how to do those things for thousands of instances at a time.