Elevate Your Data Analyst Career With These Top 8 Skills

In this article, we will be discussing the top 8 skills that you need to become a successful data analyst. These are the skills that organizations will ask during the interview as well as once you become a data analyst, if you have these skills, you can be successful in your career.

Embarking on a successful data analyst career journey requires more than just technical expertise. It demands a comprehensive skill set that goes beyond number crunching. In today’s dynamic job market, where data is hailed as the new gold, a career in data analytics holds immense potential. 

Whether you are just starting or looking to enhance your skills, mastering certain key competencies can significantly elevate your data analyst career. Let’s delve into the eight must-have skills that will set you apart in the competitive world of data analysis.

1. Good Command on Excel:

Believe it or not, Microsoft Excel is still widely used in the industry for doing data analysis and it is perfect for small data sets. And if you have knowledge of Excel formulas, the VBA formulas, charting, pivot tables, different transpose techniques, etc., you will have an edge compared to your peers. 

2. SQL(Structured Query Language)

It is called a structured query language. Now SQL you can do in MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. There are different databases on which you can run structured query language to fetch the data to do different operations with that data. As a data analyst, you are often involved in data exploration, data collection, and all those operations. So having SQL skills will be extremely useful.

3. Data Visualization Tools

You should know at least one visualization tool such as Power BI or Tableau. These are the two most popular ones but there are many out there in the industry and if you have learnt at least one tool you can easily learn some other tools. So if you’re asking me for my choice, I would go for either Power BI or Tableau. But once you have learned one tool, you can learn other tools easily. These tools allow you to connect with the data sources, and you can pull that data into this visualization tool and you can build a lot of useful dashboards. 

So once you build the dashboard, it will look more like an application. You can also export that dashboard as a mobile app. So when someone is looking at the mobile app, they can interact and they can use various UI controls to fetch the data, to fetch different reports and different visualizations dashboards. So visualization tools nowadays are extremely important. 

4. Communication and Presentation Skills

When you are becoming a data analyst, you are often talking with your business manager, your engineering groups, and different stakeholders. Your job is to communicate the requirements or, let’s say, gather the requirements effectively and offer creative solutions. You also need presentation skills because as a data analyst, you are telling your data story. When you are building a dashboard, let’s say for sales insights, you are building a story around sales declining in a particular region or they are increasing in other regions and what is the reason behind this decline or the growth. 

So telling the data story is important and presentation skills are something that you need to master. you should not get your audience too bored with your presentation and you should have an effective and engaging presentation. So that’s very important.

5. Domain Knowledge

Often, if you’re looking at a data analyst job position, they will say financial data analyst or retail data analyst. What it means is if you have a degree in finance, or let’s say if you have done a master’s or specialization in retail, that domain knowledge will be extremely useful. If you have specialized, let’s say you have done a Bachelor of Commerce or if you have a degree in finance or let’s say in retail or some industry, then that domain knowledge will be beneficial because as a data analyst, you are solving problems in a particular domain. And having that knowledge helps you effectively do data analysis. 

6. Knowledge of Programming Languages

Many companies do not ask for this skill in programming. So nowadays Python and R are two very popular programming languages. If you’re just starting, just go with Python. Having programming knowledge will give you an edge over the competition. 

Suppose an employer hires a data analyst, and he has two resumes Exist the same skills, but one of the resumes has Python or R programming languages. He would just go with that person who has programming knowledge because programming knowledge is not a must for a data analyst, but it is a plus. So if you have that, it will help you. 

7.  Mathematics and Statistics

When you’re doing data analysis, you are looking at your data distribution. You need to know what is normal distribution, standard deviation, and two standard deviations, how to remove outliers. So you need to have basic math and statistics knowledge. You should know the basics of inferential statistics and descriptive statistics. You don’t need to be a super genius in math and statistics, Just have basic knowledge and as you work on solving real-life problems you should try to enhance your knowledge in mathematics and statistics. 

8. Problem-Solving Skill

Now this is a common-sense approach. It’s a general skill where you need to be street-smart and you need to be offering different solutions for a given problem. So there is no one silver bullet that we can tell you or no one magic trick that we can tell you to improve your problem-solving skill but it’s a general smartness that you need to have.

Conclusion: 

So all these eight skills are super important if you want to get a data analyst job or if you want to become successful in your data analyst career. If you have enough motivation, one Laptop or computer, and the internet you can learn all these skills while sitting at your home from Digiperform online Data science course (Master Certification Program in Analytics, Machine Learning, and AI). India’s Only Online Data Science Training Program.

In this Data science online course You will solve 75+ projects and assignments across the project duration working on Stats, Advanced Excel, SQL, Python Libraries, Tableau, Advanced Machine Learning, and Deep Learning algorithms to solve day-to-day industry data problems in healthcare, manufacturing, sales, media, marketing, education sectors making you job ready for 30+ roles.

 If you are thinking of changing your career to data analyst, it’s a good idea. There are so many jobs being opened for data analysts. If that is something that excites you, you should consider this as an option. Many Digiperform students became successful data analysts. Right now they are working for some big companies, Next turn is yours.