Data Analyst Path
SQL, Python, dashboards. The exact tools that get data analysts hired, in order.
Your Path
SQLBolt / Mode
FreeSQL is the #1 skill in every data analyst job listing. Learn it first. SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, window functions, this alone makes you hireable.
Google Sheets
FreeAdvanced Sheets: VLOOKUP, pivot tables, array formulas, conditional formatting. Still used daily in every data team. Don't skip this, master it.
VS Code + Jupyter
Freepandas, matplotlib, numpy. Google Colab gives you free cloud notebooks. Python takes you from analyst to senior analyst, it's the difference maker.
Tableau Public / Looker Studio
FreeBuild dashboards that tell stories. Tableau Public lets you publish and share your work publicly, instant portfolio pieces that hiring managers can see.
Khan Academy + Claude
FreeUnderstand distributions, hypothesis testing, correlation, regression. Khan Academy teaches the theory, Claude explains it in plain English when you're stuck.
GitHub + Notion
Free3-5 data projects with real datasets. Kaggle competitions count. GitHub for code, Notion for write-ups. Show your thinking, not just your queries.
ChatGPT / Claude
Free tiersDebug SQL queries, explain statistical concepts, help clean messy data. AI is your always-available senior analyst who never gets tired of questions.
Your Complete Stack
SQLBolt / Mode
SQL practice. Free
Google Sheets
Spreadsheets. Free
VS Code + Jupyter
Python & notebooks. Free
Tableau Public
Visualization. Free
Khan Academy
Statistics. Free
GitHub + Notion
Portfolio. Free
ChatGPT / Claude
AI assistant. Free tiers
What Hiring Managers Actually Look For
Real datasets beat toy examples
Use government open data, Kaggle datasets, or scrape something interesting. Analysing real-world messy data shows you can handle what the job actually requires.
Tell a STORY with your analysis
Insight matters more than technique. "Sales dropped 15% in Q3 because..." is worth more than a perfect regression model with no explanation.
Present to non-technical people
The best analysts translate numbers into decisions. Practice explaining your findings to someone who doesn't know what a p-value is. That's the real job.
Show data cleaning skills
80% of a data analyst's job is cleaning and preparing data. Include messy-to-clean transformations in your portfolio, hiring managers know this is the hard part.
Average Salary Range
£30-55K UK / $60-100K US
Mid-level data analyst. Senior analysts and those who move into data science or analytics engineering can earn significantly more. Python skills push you to the higher end.
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