Data Analyst Career Roadmap
By Karthick Selvam · Published
The skills and stages to become a confident data analyst.
Foundations
Excel, SQL, basic statistics and data visualisation principles.
Tools
A BI tool such as Power BI or Tableau, and Python with pandas for automation.
Business skills
Understanding KPIs, asking the right questions and presenting clear recommendations.
Growth paths
Senior analyst, analytics engineer, product analyst, data scientist or BI lead.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get a first analyst role?
Build a portfolio of analyses on real data and show the business decisions they support.
Related programmes
- Advanced SQL for Data Professionals
- Power BI for Business Analytics
- Python for Data Engineering & Analysis
Turn this into a team capability
Our corporate programmes cover topics like this hands-on, mapped to your stack.
Data & Analytics guides
Python vs SQL for Data Work: Which to Learn First?
SQL and Python solve different parts of data work. Most data professionals need both.
What Is Power BI?
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence platform for connecting to data, modelling it and building interactive reports.
What Is Data Science?
Data science combines statistics, programming and domain knowledge to extract insights and build predictive models from data.