The Data Analytics industry is booming with demand and potential - from the period of 2019-2028, data analysis jobs are expected to represent over 27% of all available jobs in Canada. Here's how to get in on the action!
What is a Data Analyst?
A Data Analyst collects, organizes, and draws conclusions from sets of data. A Data Analyst often starts their analysis process with a question or challenge that determines how they’ll gather relevant data and uncover valuable insights. These findings are typically used to help a company improve their products, processes, and marketing strategies.
Demand for Data Analysts is high, as it's becoming increasingly popular for companies to rely on data and hire in-house data professionals. Data Analysts can work across a range of industries such as healthcare, banking, marketing, sales, HR, and more!
What is the Average Salary of a Data Analyst?
The average salary of a Data Analyst in Canada in 2021 is $57,328. With about 5-9 years of experience, a Data Analyst can expect to earn around $64,986 and a senior level Data Analyst with 10+ years of experience has an average salary of $71,653.
Images Created Based on Data from PayScale
If you’ve been wondering what a career as a Data Analyst could look like, we put together a 4-step guide to help you figure out how to make that career move happen!
Step 1: Learn the Data Fundamentals
The first step to becoming a data expert is to start with the basics and learn the fundamentals. You’ll want to get familiarized with common data analytics tools and programming languages like Microsoft Excel, SQL, Python, and Tableau. These tools help Data Analysts organize and visualize data so that it’s easy to understand for everyone!
Another tip is to learn the data analysis process, which is often applied to every data expert’s workflow. Check it out below:
Starting out with the basics of data will help you get a better idea of what a Data Analyst does on a daily basis, which will help you decide if this is the career path for you!
Step 2: Enroll in a Data Analytics Course
While self-guided learning and online research is always a great way to explore a new career pathway, often a more structured learning environment is more effective.
If you’re a beginner, you’ll probably want to start off with an introductory part-time course that offers a blend of theory and hands-on exercises based on real-world data within the curriculum. Enrolling in a part-time course like our Data Analytics course is the perfect move to help you develop practical skills and get hands-on practice with data analysis!
While you’re practicing your hard data skills, you'll also be developing soft skills that every Data Analyst has:
- Attention to detail
- Great communication
- Problem-solving abilities
- Analytical mindset
- Mathematical and statistical skills
Beyond the course, you'll want to keep practicing by building your own data projects. There are tons of free data sets available for you to get started, such as Google Dataset Search, Kaggle, Earth Data, and Datahub.
Looking for some project inspiration? Check out this fun project called The World Happiness Report, which tracks global happiness and reports on the data!
Step 3: Join a Data Analytics Bootcamp
If you're serious about launching your new career in data, you may want to consider joining a full-time immersive Bootcamp program. There, you'll solidify your fundamental data analysis skills, build lasting relationships with a community, and work on landing your first data job.
Step 4: Launch your Data Analyst Career!
It's time to launch your data career! Get your portfolio ready with a selection of your projects that showcase your new skills and knowledge, and start your job hunt.
There's a wide range of data-related job roles out there, and Data Analyst is just one of them! Below are some data job titles that you can land after our graduating a Data Analytics Bootcamp:
- Data Analyst
- Junior Data Scientist
- Business Intelligence Analyst
- Strategic Insights Analyst
- Fraud Data Analyst
- Marketing Data Analyst
- Data Specialist
A great way to level up your job search and data career is to network. Here are some ways to connect with like-minded people in the industry:
- LinkedIn - Connect with Data Analysts in your area and join relevant groups.
- Facebook - Find local events, conferences, and meetups that will help you network with data experts.
- Kaggle - This is an online data science network with a huge repository of community published data and code. Publish your projects on this platform or interact with existing data dashboards and grow your connections with a supportive online community!
- Student Community - Staying in touch with fellow classmates from any data analytics courses that you take is the key to creating long-lasting connections with people on a similar career journey!
Looking to learn data analytics?
Our beginner-friendly Data Analytics course will teach you the basics, fast. You'll learn to make data-driven decisions at work, optimize your workflows, and better understand your customers with in-demand tools and languages like Google Sheets, SQL, and Tableau. See what you'll learn and build below: