Role · Data analyst
What does a data analyst actually do?
A data analyst turns raw numbers into an answer somebody can base a decision on. The work starts with the question behind the question and ends with an outcome the client can retell themselves. It is often the first data role an organisation hires.
What do you do in this role?
A data analyst turns raw numbers into answers somebody can act on. Strong analysts ask the question behind the question before they start.
- Setting up analyses and reporting
- Explaining and substantiating trends
- Bringing stakeholders along to the outcome
Unsure between this role and the other one? What is the difference between a data analyst and a data engineer?
What companies look for in a data analyst
- Someone who sharpens the question before going to the data. Most failed analyses are well-executed answers to the wrong question.
- SQL beyond a SELECT with a JOIN: window functions, subqueries, and knowing when something belongs in the database and when in the report.
- Someone who can explain a result to a non-analyst without dropping the nuance.
- Work that is reproducible. An analysis that only runs on your laptop is a one-off favour, not a deliverable.
What matters
- SQL, and properly: this is the tool you will spend most hours in.
- One language alongside it, usually Python or R, for what SQL cannot do.
- A BI tool: Power BI, Tableau or Looker. Which one matters less than knowing one well.
- Version control. Git is no longer a luxury, not even for an analyst.
- Writing. An analysis ends in a sentence somebody reads out in a meeting.
How the role is changing
The manual work is disappearing and the framing of the question matters more. What took a week ten years ago (pulling data, cleaning it, making a chart) tooling now does in an afternoon, and AI removes another part of that. What remains is exactly the part that cannot be automated: knowing which question is worth asking, spotting that an outcome is wrong, and explaining it to someone who will decide on it. Analysts who grow in that direction end up as analytics engineers, or in a role where they shape the question themselves.
How you stand out among the other hundred
With an outcome, not with a CV. Anyone who can show that an analysis led somewhere (a process that got faster, a decision that went differently, an error found earlier) stands out immediately among a hundred profiles listing the same tools. Write it down concretely: what the question was, what you found and what happened next. Two such examples weigh more than ten skills in a list.
What every role has in common
Companies increasingly look for someone who is broadly deployable. That does not mean you have to be able to do everything: it means you look into the disciplines around yours.
As a BI specialist you do not have to be an AI specialist. But if you demonstrably use AI in your work and keep learning about it, you become added value rather than replaceable. The same goes for communicating across departments: anyone who recognises the problems, pitfalls and opportunities of sales or finance delivers work that actually lands there.
What you can earn
Our own rates are based on a gross full-time monthly salary of € 3.000 to € 3.200. That is the floor we work from for a starting professional working full time.
A market indication per role is deliberately absent. The same job title varies widely between companies (a senior BI specialist earns noticeably less at one employer than at another) and the region weighs heavily: Amsterdam sits above Eindhoven, Eindhoven above Rotterdam, and Rotterdam above Drenthe. Quoting a number without checking it would mislead you in a conversation about your own income.
Just ask us. We see what the market pays and we will tell you what we know, including when we do not know.
Current vacancies
There is no vacancy open in this role right now. Sign up anyway: most of the work we do is never advertised.
Through which brand does a data analyst reach you?
- New Data Student
- a student or starter, with guidance, for the work that keeps being postponed
- New Data Squad
- an experienced professional who sets the lines and guides the change
- New Data Search
- somebody you employ yourself
Which form fits depends on the question, not on what we happen to sell.
Do you work as a data analyst?
Leave your details. We find the assignment that fits what you can do, not the other way round.