What does a data analyst do, and which skills do you need?
A data analyst queries business, financial and market data, builds the reports and dashboards managers use, and spots patterns and trends worth acting on. Employers test report building, dashboard upkeep and careful checking, so a portfolio of reports someone relied on counts for more than a list of tools.
Last updated
What does a data analyst do?
A data analyst turns raw data into reports people act on. O*NET has no data analyst occupation; the closest O*NET occupation is Business Intelligence Analysts (O*NET 15-2051.01), and its core tasks include:
- Generate standard or custom reports summarizing business, financial, or economic data for review by executives, managers, clients, and other stakeholders.
- Maintain or update business intelligence tools, databases, dashboards, systems, or methods.
- Identify and analyze industry or geographic trends with business strategy implications.
- Document specifications for business intelligence or information technology reports, dashboards, or other outputs.
- Create business intelligence tools or systems, including design of related databases, spreadsheets, or outputs.
- Conduct or coordinate tests to ensure that intelligence is consistent with defined needs.
Which skills does a data analyst need?
A data analyst needs querying, report design, dashboard upkeep and the habit of checking every number before it reaches a manager. Show a report you built, who used it and what they decided with it.
O*NET's technology list for Business Intelligence Analysts includes Alteryx software, Amazon Redshift, Apache Hadoop and Apache Hive. Learn the warehouse and reporting tools your target employers use; careful checking carries across all of them.
Which job titles should a data analyst search for?
Data analyst roles are posted under several titles. The titles O*NET reports for Business Intelligence Analysts include:
- Business Analyst
- Business Intelligence Analyst (BI Analyst)
- Business Intelligence Consultant (BI Consultant)
- Market Intelligence Analyst
- Competitive Intelligence Analyst
How do people use AI in data analyst work?
0.52% of sampled Claude.ai conversations in May 2026 were about the tasks of Business Intelligence Analysts, the closest O*NET occupation, according to the Anthropic Economic Index. In those conversations, 66.14% asked Claude to complete the task directly (automation) and 33.86% worked with it iteratively (augmentation).
Business Intelligence Analysts is one of the occupations where automation outweighed augmentation in that sample. The figures describe how people used Claude, not the number of data analyst jobs; checking an assistant's query before it reaches a report is part of the skill.
Frequently asked questions
How is a data analyst different from a data scientist?
A data analyst mainly queries data and reports on patterns and trends, while a data scientist builds and validates predictive models. O*NET files the closest occupations separately, as Business Intelligence Analysts and Data Scientists.
Is a business analyst job the same as a data analyst job?
Business Analyst is one of the reported titles O*NET lists for Business Intelligence Analysts, the closest occupation to a data analyst. Read the job description: some business analyst roles are about reports and dashboards, others are about requirements and processes.
Where this data comes from
- O*NET 31.0 DatabaseThis page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. EmployLabs has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
- Anthropic Economic Index, release_2026_06_26 (claude_ai, global, soc_occupation, May 2026)Anthropic Economic Index (Anthropic), data released under CC BY. Usage share is the share of sampled Claude.ai conversations classified to this occupation; the automation/augmentation split describes how those conversations used Claude. Neither measures the labour market.