Businesses are changing rapidly to meet consumer demands. Annually, around 97,000 jobs go vacant in India. It is one of the highest-paying jobs. If someone wants to make a career as a data analyst, wait no further. To become an expert in data analysis, one must have data analyst skills.
For any business to stay in the competition, it is vital to ask these questions.
- How do I stay ahead of the competition?
- How can I get more sales?
- What do I need to change in the business model?
- What is the latest trend in the market?
- Where is the demand for my product?
To answer such questions, one needs a data analyst. Therefore, data analyst skills are in high demand.
What is Data Analysis?
Data Analysis is a process of:
- Collecting the data
- Process and summarise the data
- Organizing the data, and
- Transforming the data for business decisions.
What Does a Data Analyst Do?
The primary job of a data analyst is to collect data to assist the company or higher management in making better decisions. Data analysis is an entry-level job. You will work with the data team and report to the digital marketing manager. You will be working on the data team as a data analyst.
A data analyst defines the problem, devises the action plans, and communicates with the team to help them make better decisions. To become a data analyst, one needs to have data analysis skills.
What Steps Does a Data Analyst Follow to Solve Clients’ Queries?
The data analyst understands the client’s brief and finds out what the client wants. For example, the client wants to increase sales of a particular product, launch a new product in the market, or find out if there is a demand for such a product.
Then, depending on the client’s wants and brief, the data analyst will prepare the report, create a dashboard, or present the product analysis to the client. The data analyst skills will equip you to design the action plan depending on the client’s needs and demands.
For example, the data analyst will determine the required data, the timeline, etc. After understanding the primary purpose of the data analysis, the data analyst communicates with the team to activate the action plan.
The data analyst will collect the necessary data from multiple sources. These raw data are collected from various sources, such as backups, application programming interfaces, or flat files, for further processes called ETL. ETL stands for extract, transform, and load. It is a data integration process in which the programmers syndicate all the data into one place.
Once the raw data is processed for further consolidation, it’s simplified with statistics and charts and summarized for future reference. Data analysts produce visual representations of data such as graphs, pie charts, and maps. It is turned into charts and reports to understand the raw data better.
For example, suppose a food delivery client wants to know which location orders the most biryani. In that case, the data analyst will offer a visual indicating which area receives the most biryani orders.
The data analyst will develop a report depending on the client’s brief. It could be daily, weekly, or monthly. Next, the data analyst will use SQL (Structured Query Language) to automate the reports and connect the data to a data visualization platform. At this step, the data analyst will also ensure that the client’s initial questions and problems are resolved.
What Are the Skills Required to Become a Data Analyst?
Data Analyst is a competitive field. As the demand for data analysts is increasing year after year more and more students are pursuing data analysis as a career. Although there is a huge demand for data analysts, there are some prerequisites to becoming data analysts.
Education
Companies prefer candidates with a minimum bachelor’s degree. A bachelor’s degree in mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science, information technology, or data science will have an added advantage. Some profiles may demand a master’s degree as well, depending on the requirement of the company.
Problem-solving
The role of a data analyst revolves around problem-solving. The client walks in with the problem, and it is the job of a data analyst to offer the most effective solution within the given time. So, strong problem-solving and analytical skills are required to become a good data analyst.
Programming
Data analysts must learn programming languages to process and evaluate data. Programming skills involve using programming languages and tools to collect, process, and analyze data. It includes skills such as SQL for working with databases, Python for data analysis and visualization, and R for statistical analysis.
Programmers with data analytical skills can use these tools to clean, manipulate and transform data, create visualizations, and build models that can be used for predictive analysis and decision-making. These skills are in high demand as data is becoming increasingly important in various industries.
Data Visualization
Data analysis is predominantly a technical job and deals with a lot of data on a day-to-day basis. Although data analysts process the raw data using various tools, they have to simplify the data for the stakeholders or the non-technical team members and the clients. That’s when data visualization comes into the picture. Data visualization tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Excel create a compelling visual representation of the data for non-technical team members.
Communication Skills
Communication skills play a vital role in a data analyst career. Effective communication, listening, and understanding the brief for execution are essential. Data analysts also find their knack in delivering the message to the technical and non-technical audience with the level of their understanding. That’s why companies prefer data analysts with strong verbal and written communication.
Also Read: Data Analytics Scope
Why is Data Analytics a Good Career Choice?
Learning data analytics can be a good career choice for aspiring students. It will reward you for taking such a bold decision in the long run. It is estimated that around 97000 data analyst jobs go vacant every year. As every industry is becoming a data-driven industry, the demand for data analysts is bound to increase.
There is a massive demand for data analysts and data scientists in India and around the world. It is a great time to establish a career in data analysis. Data analysis offers versatile career options and choices. After learning data analyst skills, one can choose industries ranging from finance, healthcare, technology, e-commerce, media, marketing, and many more.
It offers a broad spectrum of industries to choose from, and it provides mobility from one industry to another. Due to the shortage of data analysts, the companies are ready to offer reasonable compensation for the right candidate. It also takes many measures to retain them to reduce the attrition rate and increase the company’s overall functioning.
The entry-level or data analyst with no experience will be getting around 4 LPA. After gaining three to four years of experience, the salary will grow manifold. Also, one needs to understand data analysis is a growing and competitive field.
In order to grow in this field, data analysts need to constantly upgrade by learning new technologies and solving new challenges in the work field. Ultimately, data analysts need to be open to learning and imbibe new ideas to thrive in the long run.
Top Recruiters of Data Analysts
Many companies and industries are constantly looking for suitable candidates to be recruited for the data analyst role in their company.
Technology
The technology giants like Google, IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, and alike hire data analysts. Technologies keep evolving every day. These technologies are invented by studying consumer needs and demands. To know consumer demands and needs, data analysts play a vital role.
Financial Institutions
Banks, Investment firms, financial institutions, and financial apps greatly benefit from data analysts. It helps them to find the opportunity to get more customers, investors and enables them to make quick decisions.
Healthcare Organisation
Healthcare recruits prescriptive analysts to prescribe treatment plans for patients. Clinical data is also the staple data collected from the patient to find out the patient’s progress.
Social media
Social media is integral to every company. All the companies are moving to digital space to provide service at the fingertip of the customer. The companies hire data analysts to find out the latest trend in the market, changing the audience’s preferences, habits, and tastes.
FMCG
Fast-moving consumer goods companies recruit data analysts to find out about the market demand to plan and strategies the raw material and production to meet the demand. It helps them to control the cost and helps them to produce the right product at the right time.
Data Analytics Firm
New-age companies specialize in providing data analyst services to the client. They are the one-stop shop for data services. These companies are constantly on the lookout for data analysts and data scientists to expand their services.
Startups
Investors invest in startups that are data-driven. For example, if someone wants to open a restaurant in Mumbai then the owner first does preliminary research on the locality and finds the kind of cuisine people prefer. After finding out the preference, habits, and tastes of the people then the data analyst will find out how many people order that cuisine or people prefer to come to the restaurant for dining.
Depending on the findings, the owner will open a cloud kitchen or fine dining restaurant. So, data analysts play a very important role when it comes to starting up any kind of company to find the demand for the product.
Salary After Learning Data Analytics
The salary for data analysts can vary greatly depending on location, industry, level of experience, and education. However, data analytics professionals are generally among the highest-paying roles in technology and business.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a Data Analyst in India is around Rs. 5 LPA per year. Furthermore, the salary for data analytics professionals in top cities, such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi, tends to be higher than the other cities due to the high cost of living and the concentration of technology companies in those areas.
Who Should Learn Data Analyst Skills?
Aspiring Data Analyst
If you are an aspiring data analyst, you should sharpen your skills to get recruited by one of the companies to kick-start your career. Data analysis is a growing field, and many online and offline courses have been launched to equip students with the necessary skills to get selected by top-notch companies.
Entrepreneur
If you’re an entrepreneur or starting your own business, data analyst skills can save time, energy, and money. It will enable you to find the potential client, help you develop the right kind of product, and help you position the product in the market at the right price point at the right place.
Many entrepreneurs go through hard times establishing themselves and orchestrating the whole marketing plan for the product. Having such skills definitely will be helpful at the crucial point of decision-making.
Data Scientist
Data scientists can benefit from learning skills like problem-solving, excel, and Tableau in their careers. It will help them to widen their horizon and brush up on their fundamentals of data analytical skills.
Students
If you’re a student and looking out for various options to build your career, consider honing data analyst skills. In today’s day and age, companies are driven by data. These data are collected in large numbers. To analyze these data, companies keep looking for freshers and students who have a keen eye for data and problem-solving. It is one of the fastest-growing fields.
Non-Technical Professionals
Although data are a technical role, non-technical professionals like digital marketing, sales, mathematics, computer science, and all the related fields can also benefit from learning these skills. These skills can help you to understand the data better, help you to solve the problem, and help you make better decisions. Having such skills under your sleeve will take you a long way.
Overall, anyone who wants to gain insights from data, improve performance and make better decisions should consider learning data analytics. It is a skill that can be applied in many fields and lead to many job opportunities.
Check here the best data analytics courses:
- Data Analytics Courses in India
- Data Analytics Courses in Mumbai
- Data Analytics Courses in Delhi
- Data Analytics Courses in Kolkata
Career Graph of a Data Analyst
Every company follows a different designation and position when it comes to hierarchy, but let us see the typical stages one will go through after acquiring skills.
Entry Level Data Analyst
After learning data, analysis, one will likely be landing an entry-level data analyst job. At this level, the entry-level data analyst will do fundamental data analysis, data collection, and cleaning under the senior’s supervision. One will be getting familiar with the data analysis process and will apply whatever they learned in the course.
Junior Data Analyst
After spending a couple of months as an entry-level data analyst, one will move to a junior data analyst position. You will be given small responsibilities to carry out, and the supervisor will oversee you to complete the task on time. You will also develop reports and data visualization tools at this level.
Data Analyst
After gaining insights and gaining experience, a data analyst will be proficient in handling the task independently without much supervision. At this stage, data analysts will be managing projects independently. The data analyst will solve more complex projects and give valuable insights to the collaborators.
Senior Data Analyst
After gaining many years of experience as a data analysts, they will be ready to take much more responsibility in the company. The senior data analyst will be solving much more complex projects with the team of people working under them. They will be making data-driven decisions and creating reports for the stakeholders.
Data Scientist
Data Scientist is a higher-level management job. To transition from data analyst to data scientist, one must learn machine learning and advance data analytical skills to solve complex problems. Data scientists not only solve problems but must have acquired leadership skills to lead the team and delegate work to get the work done on time.
Leadership Role
Data analysts with excellent leadership abilities, domain experience, and a track record of producing significant results may advance to managerial or leadership positions. At this level, one must have people skills to manage and delegate work apart from managing data and developing strategies for the team and company, which can drive towards taking well-informed data-driven decisions for the company.
Consultant
Once you excel in the field of data analysis after acquiring all the necessary skills and building your network, you may choose to become a consultant. The data analyst prefers to work alone or with a small team. They offer job opportunities to young talent and services that make a difference in the industry. The consultants become entrepreneurs and start their own companies to offer their services to the industry as per their specialization.
Q&A
Is it challenging to learn data analyst skills?
We must admit that we are all novices when we start developing new skills. After some time and effort, we start getting better at the skills. The same principle applies while learning these skills too. In the beginning, everyone will face some challenges while learning data analysis. Once you develop the foundation, it will become easier for you to acquire this skill.
Is it essential to learn coding skills to become a data analyst?
Yes, it is important to learn coding to become a data analyst. The data analyst uses many programming languages to process the data. Some common programming languages are Python, R, Tableau, and many more. With the help of coding language, data analysts manipulate, analyze, and visualize data to achieve the desired result.
How to become a data analyst when you are a working professional?
There are many ways one can become a data analyst. But, if you are working professionally and don’t have time to attend classes or institute, joining online courses would be the best way to learn. Most online institute comes with pre-recorded video so that the students or the working professionals can learn at their convenient time. After getting the foundation skills, you can further diversify into your specific field to get in-depth knowledge so that you can advance in your career. The online courses are also very pocket friendly and I believe it is one of the best ways one can learn the basics of data analysis.
Conclusion:
Data analytics is one of the essential skills in today’s world. In this digital age, data drives any industry or company’s success. Data analyst plays a significant role in identifying the market for the product and developing a product that can sell in the market. The demand for such skills will grow in the coming days. Having these skills can add a lot of weightage to your portfolio, and the companies will give you opportunities to make a difference in the growing industry.
If you’re a young college student and thinking of learning data analysis, I would recommend you learn these skills. And if you’re a professional who spent 10 to 15 years in a particular field then I would recommend you to do a short online course to understand the data analyst field and suss out whether it will benefit your current experience or will it help you to diversify. It is always good to make plans before making any big career move decisions.