In 2025, data analysts are needed in virtually every sector. From healthcare to retail, companies are drowning in data and desperate for professionals who can turn numbers into insights.
This is clear in the data analyst job outlook for 2025.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 23% increase in the job market by 2032, and this growth rate will likely accelerate as more data becomes available.
What about AI—will it take over the role? Our analysis suggests otherwise. While AI isn't replacing data analysts, it's transforming their work.
According to Alteryx’s 2025 report, 70% of analysts say that AI automation enhances their work effectiveness, while 87% feel more strategically valuable than ever before.
In other words, the data analyst role isn’t going anywhere but up. The key to success? Stay flexible, embrace new technologies, and master the in-demand skills that today's employers value most.
This article is our latest annual analysis of the data analyst job market. We've examined over 1,000 job postings to bring you current insights into what employers want from data analysts in 2025.
Key Insights
- Specialists in high demand – 69.3% of postings seek Domain Experts with specific skills (SQL, statistics, visualization), while 30.7% want Versatile Professionals
- Machine learning skills – Analysts may still use ML tools but ML expertise is less crucial than for data scientists
- Data visualization tools are a must – Tableau (28.1%) and Power BI (24.7%) are the most in-demand visualization tools
- Office tools still matter – Microsoft Excel is referenced in 41.3% of job postings, emphasizing its continued importance for data analysis and reporting
- Significant salary growth – Data analyst salaries have increased by $20,000 since 2024, with the current average at $111,000, showing strong market demand and value for analytical skills
- More entry-level & business-focused roles – Data analysts often work closer to business functions, and many roles do not require high-end programming or ML expertise
Table of Contents
How Can You Become a Data Analyst? (Education)
What Technical Skills Do You Need as a Data Analyst?
How Can You Land a Data Analyst Job? (Salaries and More)
What is the Data Analyst Job Outlook in 2025?
Become a Data Analyst with 365 Data Science
Methodology
We analyzed 1,355 job postings from Glassdoor US to help you get a better understanding of the data analyst job market in 2025.
After cleaning and removing duplicates, we extracted key data analysis keywords and requirements from each listing. This comprehensive analysis reveals current job responsibilities, skill requirements, and industry trends.
To make our findings clear and comparable, we've presented all data as percentages and created visual representations that highlight the most important trends.
Note that last year's research used job postings from Indeed US. This difference in job board platforms should be considered when comparing results.
What do Data Analysts Do?
Last year, our analysis highlighted an important trend in data-related roles. Companies were moving away from hiring specialists focused on single data tasks, instead seeking professionals who could handle data end-to-end, combining multiple skill sets.
This year, we've developed our Job Posting Specialization Score (JPSS) to track this trend. But before we get into that, let's look at the traditional data analyst job description.
Data Analyst Job Description
Data analysts are information detectives who help organizations make sense of their data through statistical analysis, visualization, and reporting. They turn complex datasets into clear insights that drive business decisions.
With the increasing adoption of data-driven decision making, data analysts remain in high demand across industries in 2025. They work closely with business teams to identify trends, create dashboards, and generate regular reports.
The data analytics job market typically requires:
- Strong SQL and database querying skills
- Proficiency in data visualization tools (Tableau, Power BI)
- Statistical analysis and reporting capabilities
- Business acumen and communication skills
While data scientists focus on building complex models and AI systems, data analysts extract practical insights from data and communicate them effectively to stakeholders. They're often the bridge between raw data and business decision-makers.
Job Posting Specialization Score (JPSS)
This description holds true for specialized data analyst roles—but does this reflect the actual state of the data analyst job market? That’s where the JPSS comes in!
Our Job Posting Specialization Score (JPSS) analyzes job listings to determine whether companies prefer specialists with deep expertise in specific areas or generalists who can handle diverse tasks. This score helps reveal current hiring trends in the data analyst job market.
Our analysis examined job postings across 11 different skill categories. We assigned each posting a Job Posting Specialization Score (JPSS) based on the number of required skill categories, helping us understand what employers are looking for in 2025. We categorized the skills as follows:
Here are the results:
Unlike other data-related roles such as data scientists (see our 2025 research), the data analyst job market shows a strong preference for domain experts—professionals who specialize specifically in data analysis skills. These specialists appear in nearly 70% of job postings.
To land a job, your best bet is to focus on core data analyst skills and master them thoroughly. Rather than having basic knowledge across many skills, employers seek data analysts who excel at their specialized work.
Having AI and ML skills will certainly enhance your professional value—after all, 70% of data analysts are using AI tools to boost their productivity in 2025. Your primary focus, however, should remain on mastering the core analytical skills, if data analyst is your desired role.
For comprehensive training aligned with current market demands, consider the Data Analyst Career Track from 365 Data Science. It offers hands-on training in SQL, statistics, and visualization tools through real-world projects.
That said, over 30% of job postings seek versatile professionals, representing a significant portion of data analytics job opportunities. Research the roles you're targeting and identify the skills those employers require. Then, earn relevant certifications to boost your chances of getting hired.
Check out 365 Data Science's course certificates covering everything from Excel to AI.
How Can You Become a Data Analyst?
Let's look at how to become a data analyst in today's job market. What education and qualifications are employers actually looking for in 2025?
Data Analyst Education Requirements
Looking at the data analyst education requirements in 2025, it's clear that a mix of technical skills and formal education is recommended.
While the most common degrees remain unchanged from last year, our data suggests a growing emphasis on technical skills—particularly coding expertise. Let's examine the details.
While statistics and math graduates (26% and 16% of postings respectively) remain steady since 2024 along with most other degrees, computer science (28%) and engineering (22%) have climbed in the rankings.
This shift likely reflects the growing technical demands of modern data analysis. As organizations deploy more sophisticated data tools and automate routine tasks, they need analysts who can write complex queries, work with APIs, and integrate various data systems.
Computer science and engineering graduates often bring stronger programming foundations and systems thinking, making them increasingly valuable in the job market for data analysts, where technical expertise meets business analysis.
This doesn't mean you need one of these specific degrees to land a job—fields like statistics, data science, math, data analytics, and information systems are also sought-after, all appearing in over 10% of postings.
Like last year, we also found degrees in such diverse fields as economics, architecture, physics, and chemistry on our list. These fields often align with domain-specific data analyst roles and also demonstrate analytical thinking and attention to detail.
Now that you know what kind of degree you'll need, let's see what level of education is ideal for data analyst roles in 2025.
Like we saw in our data science job market research this year, there's a trend toward higher-level degrees. While bachelor's degrees still dominate the data analyst job market, the proportion of employers requiring this level has decreased from 45% in 2024 to 39% in 2025.
Accordingly, the frequency of PhD requirements in data analyst job postings has increased from 2% in 2024 to 5% in 2025—though this remains a small portion of the total.
The frequency of master's degrees and postings not specifying a certain level (20%) remain the same since last year.
|
2024 |
2025 |
||
|
Bachelor's |
45.1% |
Bachelor's |
39.4% |
|
Master's |
34.4 |
Master's |
35.5% |
|
PhD |
2.1% |
PhD |
5.2% |
|
Not Mentioned |
18.4% |
Not Mentioned |
19.9% |
What does this mean for you? A bachelor's degree remains sufficient to land data analyst jobs, though this trend appears to be shifting.
If you're looking to break into a data analyst career in 2025, pursuing a graduate-level program could strengthen your resume. But the main consideration is the investment required—you'll need to dedicate at least two more years to your education.
Fortunately, there are several alternatives to formal education. Industry certifications in specific tools or platforms can effectively demonstrate your expertise to potential employers.
The market now offers many certification platforms that provide credentials for specific skills or complete career tracks.
You can enhance your bachelor's degree with targeted certifications from our learning platform 365 Data Science—we offer all the topics you need to secure a data analyst job this year!
What Technical Skills Do You Need as a Data Analyst?
While degrees are valuable, employers value hands-on experience more—particularly when candidates can showcase their abilities through real projects. Let's explore the top data analytics skills that hiring managers are looking for in 2025.
Programming Skills for Data Analysis
Historically in statistics and data analysis, programming was considered a bonus rather than a necessity.
Our research, however, shows that programming skills are gradually becoming standard data analytics job requirements, trickling down from technical ML engineer positions to data analyst roles.
The results, however, haven't changed much since last year.
SQL still takes the top spot for data analysts, appearing in around half of the job postings. This continued dominance reflects SQL's important role in querying and manipulating the large databases that most companies rely on for their operations.
Python is less crucial for data analysts than for data scientists, but still appears in a significant 33% of postings. R follows as the last language in the data trio, appearing in 20% of data analyst job postings.
Python offers versatility across all tasks, while R specializes in statistical analysis.
Want to learn SQL—the most in-demand skill for data analysts? Consider exploring our SQL training program that takes you through database management fundamentals to advanced concepts with practical exercises.
Data Analysis Skills
The core skill for data analysts, obviously, is data analysis—the ability to examine raw data using statistical methods and tools to uncover meaningful patterns and insights.
Employers likely assume that candidates applying for data analyst positions already have these basic skills, which explains why they aren't always explicitly mentioned in job postings, as shown in our results.
The demand for these skills remains consistent, mirroring last year’s data analytics job outlook.
One skill stands out, appearing in 22% of job postings: data visualization. We’ll explore this further in the following section.
The next most important data analysis skill—appearing in 8% of listings—is statistical analysis.
This isn't surprising, as statistical analysis forms the backbone of data analysis. It's the fundamental toolkit that enables analysts to transform raw data into meaningful insights and make data-driven decisions.
Want to build a rock-solid foundation in statistics? Our comprehensive Statistics Fundamentals course covers everything from basic principles to advanced concepts, giving you the strong analytical base you need.
A few other skills deserve mention from this list: data mining (7%) and A/B testing (2%).
Data mining involves discovering patterns in large datasets, while A/B testing helps compare different versions of products or features to determine which performs better.
Employers value these skills because they're needed for making data-driven business decisions and improving product performance.
Now, let’s take a look at the most in-demand data analysis skill: data visualization.
Data Visualization Tools
While the top three tools remain unchanged since 2024, there's been a notable shift in leadership. Power BI, previously the most popular data visualization software, has been overtaken.
In 2025, Tableau now leads with mentions in 28% of data analyst job postings (a 2% increase since last year), while Power BI has declined by 4% to 25%.
Despite this change in rankings, these two tools remain neck-and-neck as the most popular data visualization software for data analysts.
They create clear, engaging visual representations that help non-technical stakeholders make connections between complex data analysis and the stories they tell.
Want to tell stories with your data? Check out our introductory Tableau and PowerBI courses to turn your analysis into understanding.
Microsoft Office Tools
Most companies assume applicants have a basic understanding of Microsoft Office tools, which explains why these skills appear less frequently in job listings compared to other skills.
But as a data analyst, Excel will be your primary tool, making it crucial to develop strong Excel skills.
In fact, while companies generally expect basic Excel proficiency, 41% of job postings specifically mention it—emphasizing the importance of advanced Excel knowledge in the data analyst job market.
Word (12%) and PowerPoint (6%) are also vital for creating reports or presentations and should be included in any data analyst's toolkit.
New to Excel? Start with our Intro to Excel course. Once you've mastered the basics, our Advanced Excel course will take your skills to the next level. Even experienced users have told us that they discovered valuable new techniques in this course!
Business Domain Knowledge
Unlike data scientists who have a more technical focus, data analysts aim to support businesses through data-driven decision making.
This can happen in almost any field—from retail and logistics to healthcare—making business skills an important part of the data analytics career outlook.
As a data analyst, you'll need to learn the terminology and skills specific to your industry. While it's impossible to cover every possible skill here, we've analyzed some general business terms to help you plan your data analyst job growth.
The term "sales" appears in 14% of job postings. Since businesses primarily focus on driving sales, data analysts are expected to help make decisions that increase revenue.
"Forecasting" was another popular term, found in 7% of postings. This skill is crucial for helping businesses predict future trends and make proactive decisions.
A few marketing-related terms also appear in the data, such as “retention” (5%), “marketing analytics” (2%), and “conversion rates” (1%)—all key metrics that data analysts track to measure business success and customer behavior.
Soft Skills for Data Analysts
As mentioned, data analysts have a more business-oriented role compared to data scientists or data engineers. Because of this focus, soft skills play a particularly crucial role in their work.
For the first time, we added soft skills to our keyword analysis of the data analyst job outlook. Here’s what we found:
Data analysts don't just keep their findings to themselves—their main goal is to use these findings to drive business decisions. This involves effectively communicating results to stakeholders.
Stakeholder communication appears in nearly 60% of data analyst job postings. Employers clearly value ability to translate technical jargon into understandable stories.
Problem solving is also crucial for data analysts, mentioned in 29% of postings—they need to tackle complex data challenges and find creative solutions.
In our data analyst career outlook for 2025, presentation skills rank as the third most important soft skill, appearing in 14% of job postings. This skill goes hand-in-hand with stakeholder communication—you must organize and present your findings clearly to ensure your insights make an impact.
Our Communication and Presentation Skills for Analysts and Managers course led by data storytelling expert Gilbert Eijkelenboom will help you master stakeholder interactions and deliver impactful presentations that drive action.
Machine Learning and AI Skills
While machine learning hasn't traditionally been part of the data analyst toolkit, this trend is changing.
Machine learning mentions in job postings have doubled from 7% last year to 14% in 2025.
This rise reflects the growing integration of AI tools into data analysis workflows and highlights employers' increasing expectations for analysts to understand basic machine learning concepts.
As we noted, 70% of analysts say that AI automation enhances their work effectiveness in 2025—our research confirms this trend.
Deep learning and NLP also appear in job postings, though much less frequently than the other skills covered in this data analyst job outlook analysis.
Ready to join the majority of data analysts who use AI to enhance their workflow? Our ChatGPT for Data Analysis course shows you how to harness AI's power in your daily work.
Interdisciplinary Technical Skills
Returning to job specialization, our analysis reveals that 31% of data analyst job postings seek versatile professionals who can handle more aspects of the data lifecycle beyond core data analyst skills.
As noted earlier, SQL's importance has increased significantly in recent years. This trend aligns with data engineers becoming one of the most in-demand data roles.
But employers often blur the lines between data engineers and analysts, even though these roles have distinct responsibilities.
Data engineers build and maintain data infrastructure and pipelines, while data analysts focus on examining data to uncover business insights.
While these roles have distinct responsibilities, our research into the data analyst job market finds that employers increasingly seek data analysts who can handle both aspects of working with data.
In our data, ETL, data governance, and data modeling each appeared in over 5% of data analyst job postings.
While this percentage isn't large, it indicates that these skills are valued advantages—and sometimes requirements—for employers. Having them can only improve your chances in the job market.
Companies often need analysts who can handle basic data infrastructure tasks, especially in smaller organizations where roles overlap.
Want to enhance your data analyst career? Our Intro to Data Engineering course and Building Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow course will give you the edge in the competitive 2025 data analyst job market.
Cloud Skills for Data Science
As companies increasingly move their data operations to the cloud, basic cloud skills have become valuable—giving them their own section in our data analyst job projections for 2025.
Tools like AWS and Azure were mentioned in 7% and 6% of the postings respectively in 2025—around a 3% jump since 2024.
One interesting change since last year is in the results for the Google Cloud Platform. In 2024, this was the most mentioned cloud platform for data analysts, at 7%. In 2025, this has dropped to 0.2%.
While this dramatic shift could indicate a declining trend in GCP adoption, it might also be a limitation of our data collection methodology—we'll need more data points to confirm if this represents a genuine data analyst job market trend.
Cloud knowledge helps analysts work more effectively with modern data tools and handle larger datasets.
While deep cloud expertise remains primarily in the domain of data engineers, analysts who understand cloud basics have a competitive advantage in the 2025 job market.
Our Building Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow and Introduction to Data Architecture courses will give you the cloud computing expertise that employers are increasingly demanding in 2025.
How Can You Land a Data Analyst Job?
The next section of our data analyst job outlook research examines two critical aspects: location and salaries.
Where Do Data Analysts Work?
Our 2025 job posting analysis revealed a major shift: for the first time, New York—not California—has claimed the top spot for data analyst positions!
The data shows a clear concentration of opportunities in two states—New York and New Jersey—appearing in 26% and 11% of postings respectively.
The remaining top 10 states—California, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, and Washington—each account for just 2% to 8% of listings.
This geographical shift reflects how data analyst roles have become more distributed across industries.
While tech companies in California previously dominated hiring, the high data analysis demand in New York showcases how financial institutions, healthcare organizations, media companies, and other sectors increasingly need data analysts.
Now, let's talk about the question that's probably on everyone's mind.
Remote Work for Data Analysts
The proportion of job postings explicitly mentioning remote positions has decreased slightly since 2024, from 2.8% to 1.5%.
While this percentage seems low, several factors provide important context.
First, 8% of job postings don't specify a location at all. These companies may offer remote work without explicitly stating it in their advertisements.
Additionally, hybrid work arrangements have become standard practice. According to Statista, half of the US workforce now splits their time between office and remote work.
Another notable finding in our 2025 data analyst job outlook is that remote work rates for data analysts appear to be lower than for data scientists, who had a 5% rate in 2025's research.
While not huge, this demonstrates one fundamental difference between the roles.
Data analysts have a much more business-oriented role than data scientists. The more business-oriented your position, the more you need to participate in stakeholder meetings and work across different teams—making it more difficult to work remotely.
If you're interested in working for companies abroad, keep in mind that many roles may require you to relocate rather than work from home.
How Much Do Data Analysts Make in 2025?
Based on Glassdoor data from Q1 2025, the average data analyst salary in the US is $111,000. The compensation varies depending on experience level, as shown below:
0-1 Year: $90,000
2-3 Years: $104,000
4-6 Years: $109,000
7-9 Years: $113,000
10+ Years: $119,000+
Compared to early 2024, when the average data analyst earned $90,000, this represents a significant increase of over $20,000. The dramatic salary growth indicates strong market demand for professionals with data analysis skills.
Our own market research, however, shows slightly different results.
The most frequently mentioned rage was $60K to $80K at 27%, followed by $80K to $100K at 25%. A salary of over $100K annually was only mentioned in about 30% of the job postings.
This discrepancy could be related to a number of factors, most significantly the experience expected in the job postings and the database of salaries Glassdoor uses to calculate its average.
On this topic, let’s take a look at what level of experience employers are looking for in 2025 candidates.
Required Experience
In our 2025 data analytics job market research, only 26% of job postings specify required experience, but among those that do, there appears to be a general trend toward hiring more experienced analysts.
All experience categories showed an increase except for 0-2 years, suggesting a decline in entry-level hiring.
This shift points to a maturing market where data analyst roles have become more complex and integral to organizations, creating higher demand for experienced professionals.
The most significant increase in demand was for candidates with 4-6 years of experience now at 8%, which had been one of the less sought-after categories in 2024 at 2%.
In both 2024 and 2025, employers most frequently sought candidates with 2-4 years of experience, showing strong demand for mid-level professionals.
What is the Data Analyst Job Outlook in 2025?
So, is data analytics a good career in 2025? The data strongly suggests yes!
The data analyst job outlook for 2025 remains robust and promising, with several key trends shaping the landscape:
- Entry-level salaries have increased significantly to $90,000—the average is up by $20,000 from 2024
- New York has become the leading location for data analyst positions, with 26% of job postings
- Machine learning mentions in job postings have doubled to 14%, showing growing integration of AI tools
- The field is maturing, with increased demand for interdisciplinary skills including ETL, data governance, and cloud computing
These trends and statistics indicate a positive career outlook for data analysts in the coming years, making it an attractive field for both new entrants and experienced professionals.
While the job market shows a preference for candidates with 2-4 years of experience and demands a broader skill set, the substantial salary growth and geographical diversification of opportunities suggest that data analysis remains a highly valuable career path.
Is data analytics oversaturated? Not for those with the right combination of skills.
The profession continues to evolve with technological advances, particularly in AI and cloud computing, making it an exciting time for professionals who are willing to adapt and expand their skill set beyond traditional analysis tools.
Become a Data Analyst with 365 Data Science
At 365 Data Science, we offer a comprehensive Data Analyst Career Track designed to take you from beginner to job-ready professional.
Our carefully structured curriculum covers all the essential skills highlighted in this job outlook report—from SQL and data visualization fundamentals to Python for data preparation.
We design our curriculum to meet the evolving data analyst job requirements, ensuring our courses prepare you for the increasingly technical demands of the role. With average entry-level salaries now at $90,000, there's never been a better time to start your data analyst journey.
The Career Track includes practical projects that simulate real-world business scenarios. Plus, our courses are regularly updated to reflect the latest industry trends, including the growing importance of cloud platforms like AWS and Azure.
Ready to start your journey toward a rewarding career in data analysis? Sign up today and join thousands of students who have successfully transitioned into data analyst roles. Your future in data analysis starts here!
We hope this data analyst job outlook has helped you understand what skills you need to develop to land your dream role in 2025!
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