The common assumption about the Data Analyst’s daily work may be represented by images of a person lost in the endless ocean of numbers in Microsoft Excel sheets. However, the true Data Analyst’s work has little to do with math and more to do with interpreting data and coming up with business solutions based on these interpretations.

Now, what is a typical Data Analyst day? Below is an approximate schedule of their working hours.

A good part of the morning will be used for monitoring the status of the company through various dashboards. Usually, the dashboards are automatic reports created in programs like Power BI or Tableau. These tools update data automatically overnight, and the first thing a Data Analyst does is analyse all the dashboards.

Is there a drastic increase or a decrease in some statistics? Was it noticed before that customers stopped signing up for your services overnight? Has your website’s traffic decreased or increased drastically? This is when the detective side of the job begins.

After an observation has been made, it is time to delve into the details. At this point, technical skills are required. In general, a Data Analyst uses:

The process itself may seem boring, but there is a lot of work to be done at this stage – data cleaning takes up the majority of time. As mentioned by professionals, about 70-80% of an analyst’s time is spent on data preparation to analyze it further.

There is another aspect of the work of a Data Analyst that takes quite a lot of time and is often underrated communication. Analysts regularly attend meetings with managers, marketers or product teams to present their findings in a comprehensible form.

It is the key skill in itself. Instead of presenting tables filled with numbers, an analyst has to be able to say in simple words: “Conversion rate dropped by 12% because of a slow checkout page”. The most valuable analysts are those who present data briefly and clearly, which leads to decisions.

There aren’t many times when a Data Analyst will only focus on one task. While working on other tasks, some of the examples of requests include:

Such requests make each day unique.

In essence, being a Data Analyst involves translating the information from figures to actions. There’s no need for being a mathematical genius; rather, curiosity, attention to details, and the ability to present the insights in a clear way is what counts.The position requires technical knowledge such as SQL and Excel (and sometimes Python), as well as soft skills such as communication and business sense, like few other tech positions do. It’s for precisely this reason that it has become one of the easiest ways to enter the world of data and one of the most sought-after positions in any industry.

If this sounds like the right career for you, the encouraging thing is that there’s no need to know everything straight away. Learning SQL and Excel, how to use a visualization tool, and how to communicate your insights clearly makes up at least 80% of the position.