According to Market Research, nearly 72 percent of the marketers believed data analysis as a major aspect to thrive in the current market scenario. The success rate of marketing campaigns will only reign with the help of conventional data analysis.
By 2025, the world’s data is estimated to grow to 175 zettabytes says IDC. With the amount of data generated daily, there is an increasing need for highly skilled professionals to analyze and visualize these data. If not for data analysts who do you think would be capable to take up this task?
But who is a data analyst?
You might come across multiple articles with a list of things that a data analyst performsdaily. However, in simple words, the task of a data analyst is to analyze and visualize data of the company. Further on, the information provided by the data analyst helps the company have a defined product to be offered to the customers based on their preferences, their marketing strategy, and what are the improvements that can be made in the ongoing strategy.
Skills required for a data analyst
The task of a data analyst is to scrutinize information with the help of data analysis tools like Apache Spark, SAS, KNIME, Tableau Public, etc. As a result, it helps the company to make informed decisions. For an individual to become a successful data analyst, you need to possess skills such as,
- High level of mathematics and statistics ability – as a data analyst, a good grasp in mathematics and statistics is a must-have skill. With the help of statistics,you will be able to analyze real-world data and provide business value to companies. Mathematics is crucial for data analysts since it can help solve complex business problems.
- Programming languages – gaining familiarity with programming languages such as Python, R, Java, C++, MATLAB is mandatory. Also, gaining proficiency in multiple programming languages is an added advantage for the individual. Most budding aspirants are already taking up professional certification programs such as data analytics certification to stay ahead of the curve.
- Data visualization – a data analyst must be able to visualize data in a manner where they can analyze which types of graphs to use, which charts to use, and how to scale visualizations. Some common tools include names like FineReport, Tableau, and Power BI.
- Data management and manipulation –onceyou have completed analyzing data you would be required to write reports based on the findings. As a data analyst,you must be aware of skills like Microsoft Power BI, Oracle Visual Analyzer, Tableau, Cognos, and SAS.
- Communication skills – one of the common responsibilities include the data analyst to communicate the accurate information to the decision-makers, thus, communication skills are highly required. Collaboration with clients, IT specialists, and executives is important ensuring the data is properly aligned with the business objective.
- SQL databases – these are relational databases with structured data. The data analyst is required to pull in data that are arranged in tabular formats to perform analysis.
Most of the data scientists were once data analysts. Thus, if you’re already a data analyst shifting career to become a data scientist is not a tough career shift. You will find many tech professionals with data science certificate to help them change jobs.
A fresher data analyst could make a handsome salary package; however, this depends on their expertise and skillset. The reason why professional certifications have become crucial in the current job market. Also, the skills of a data analyst may depend on the type of industry they’re hired.
With technology on the rise, the day to day life of a data analyst is now becoming much more complex. At times, they’re required to transform their roles and become data scientists to explain the findings.
How willing are you to make that jump?
