Discussion
I've been looking around for alternative jobs/skills and have seen LOTS of data analyst roles. I suspect this type of role offers some long term job security as they will probably be in demand
The thing is it sounds both interesting but also really boring. Are you going to go home thinking you have contributed anything useful to society?
Anyone on here a DA and have thoughts?
The thing is it sounds both interesting but also really boring. Are you going to go home thinking you have contributed anything useful to society?
Anyone on here a DA and have thoughts?
Data Analyst covers a multitude of different possibilities. From bashing numbers around in Excel to doing deep and complex multi node layered graphs with possibly some machine learning thrown in for good measure.
It could be mind numbingly boring - just producing this month's financial results via little more than copy and paste. Or it could be incredibly complex and challenging.
So I think you'll struggle to get a decent answer. But I would say you need a mind that works the right way - I've seen very good programmers fail spectacularly to grasp even the basics of manipulating data. And also people who seemingly couldn't code their way out of a paper bag but had no trouble visualising their dimensions, facts, filters and aggregations etc.
It could be mind numbingly boring - just producing this month's financial results via little more than copy and paste. Or it could be incredibly complex and challenging.
So I think you'll struggle to get a decent answer. But I would say you need a mind that works the right way - I've seen very good programmers fail spectacularly to grasp even the basics of manipulating data. And also people who seemingly couldn't code their way out of a paper bag but had no trouble visualising their dimensions, facts, filters and aggregations etc.
See if you can experiment with Microsoft Power BI or Tableau for a while. Plenty of Microsoft tutorials on Power BI to get you going.
I dabbled for a while at work but couldn't get my head out of an Excel mindset so didn't get the most out of Power BI, which is very powerful, and Tableau is supposed to be even better. Their abilities come from being able to import data sets from a huge variety of sources, combine them, and draw insights.
Data Analysis is a very hot career at the moment but I don't know what experience/qualifications you need to break into it from another career.
I dabbled for a while at work but couldn't get my head out of an Excel mindset so didn't get the most out of Power BI, which is very powerful, and Tableau is supposed to be even better. Their abilities come from being able to import data sets from a huge variety of sources, combine them, and draw insights.
Data Analysis is a very hot career at the moment but I don't know what experience/qualifications you need to break into it from another career.
It's largely what you make it, my experience is you need a grasp of the subject matter and have a problem to solve to make it useful or interesting.
I've worked with a few data people who are incredibly clever but produced absolutely nothing of use because they couldn't grasp the problem or understand the data.
If you've got no experience with database, manipulation and visualisation tools though I suspect it would be hard to get into...
I've worked with a few data people who are incredibly clever but produced absolutely nothing of use because they couldn't grasp the problem or understand the data.
If you've got no experience with database, manipulation and visualisation tools though I suspect it would be hard to get into...
As pointed out, it's a bit of a broad church. I personally have never used the term as a job title, but it's pretty much all I've been doing for 25 years when you distill it. Over the years I've worked at online gambling, social media, media & entertainment, oil&gas, retail, forex, gaming, government. All sorts really. At no point was I saving lives or teaching kids to read, so you be the judge of its worth 
There are a few types of people:
- Data analysts who knock up reports and dashboards with simple filters and aggregations
- Data analysts who bring a bit more math to the table for forecasting, correlation, anomaly detection
- Data scientists who are building predictive models
The former are mainly using GUI tools like Tableau with a bit of SQL. I don’t think this is too hard to get into.
The latter two increasingly start to look like coders and probably have Python skills. Data scientists are often very quantitative.
It is a huge growth area as all businesses are looking to use their data in new and clever ways.
- Data analysts who knock up reports and dashboards with simple filters and aggregations
- Data analysts who bring a bit more math to the table for forecasting, correlation, anomaly detection
- Data scientists who are building predictive models
The former are mainly using GUI tools like Tableau with a bit of SQL. I don’t think this is too hard to get into.
The latter two increasingly start to look like coders and probably have Python skills. Data scientists are often very quantitative.
It is a huge growth area as all businesses are looking to use their data in new and clever ways.
Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff