Overview
Data Analysts collect, clean, model and present data to support business decisions. Day-to-day work mixes SQL queries against data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift), dashboard development (Tableau, Power BI, Looker), exploratory analysis (Python, R), stakeholder interviews and presentations. UK analysts increasingly use modern analytics-engineering tools (dbt, Airflow) alongside traditional BI. The role is widely used as a gateway into data science, product analytics or analytics engineering after 2-4 years.
Responsibilities
- Run SQL queries and build dashboards from raw business data.
- Translate stakeholder questions into measurable analyses.
- Specialise into analytics engineering, BI, marketing analytics or data science.
- Work across sectors including banks, retailers, tech companies, consultancies and the NHS.
Salary ranges
- Tech and fintech companies pay £45,000-£65,000 starting.
- Banking and major consulting firms pay £40,000-£55,000.
- Public sector and NHS pay £32,000-£42,000.
- Senior analytics engineers and product analysts at top tech firms can reach £80,000-£110,000.
Skills you'll need
- Stakeholder management and asking good questions.
- Clear written communication and storytelling.
- Translating ambiguous questions into testable hypotheses.
- Pragmatic problem-solving.