Compensation
Market data- p25
- $76,250
- median
- $92,000
- p75
- $101,250
Annual base, USD, from public postings · based on n=35 · Updated July 2026. How we calculate this
Market data for this role — salary, demand, and skills. See live openings below.
Data Analysts turn raw, messy data into answers a business can act on — writing SQL, building dashboards, validating metrics, and explaining what the numbers actually mean. This page covers what the role does, the skills that matter, and how demand and pay break down by region.
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Post a role →A Data Analyst sits between raw data and decisions. The core loop is: someone has a question, the analyst figures out what data could answer it, pulls and cleans that data (usually with SQL), analyzes it, and communicates the answer in a way a non-technical stakeholder can act on. That last step — turning a query result into a clear recommendation — is where a lot of the value lives. Building a dashboard is the visible output; defining the right metric and trusting it is the harder part.
The difference between a strong and weak analyst is rarely raw technical skill. Weak analysts answer the literal question asked, pull a number without checking whether the join inflated it, and present charts with no narrative. Strong analysts interrogate the question behind the question, sanity-check their results against known reality, flag when the data can't support a confident answer, and keep metric definitions consistent so two reports don't disagree. Intellectual honesty about uncertainty is a senior trait.
SQL is non-negotiable — comfortable joins, window functions, CTEs, and aggregation. On top of that: a BI tool (Tableau, Looker, or Power BI), spreadsheet fluency that's deeper than most expect, and a working grasp of statistics — distributions, significance, the traps in averages and A/B tests. Many analysts add Python or R for analysis the BI layer can't handle. Increasingly valuable is light data-modeling sense (understanding how the warehouse is structured, dbt awareness) and the communication skill to write a tight summary. The strongest analysts pair technical accuracy with genuine business curiosity.
Candidates on Diiirect complete a role-specific skills assessment instead of being judged on resume keywords alone. For Data Analysts that centers on practical SQL problems, metric-definition and data-interpretation scenarios, and questions that probe statistical judgment — spotting a misleading average, choosing the right cut of the data, recognizing when a result is too noisy to trust. Paired with portfolio and profile review, it gives hiring teams a reliable read on whether someone can actually do the work, not just describe it.
Annual base, USD, from public postings · based on n=35 · Updated July 2026. How we calculate this
~50th percentile — about $92,000 would out-earn an estimated 50% of Data Analysts.
Estimated from the p25–p75 band. For orientation, not an offer.
The most recent openings tracked across the market. Apply directly — no middle layer.
Roles from other companies hiring Data Analysts right now, sourced straight from their own job boards.
Median annual base in USD by region. Hiring globally widens the band you can recruit from — and the arbitrage you can capture.
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Salary and demand figures are derived from public job postings and the BLS OEWS baseline. Read how we calculate this.