Data Analytics Roadmap

Excel and Google Sheets are the most widely used data tools in the world. Master them first.

• Formulas — SUM, IF, COUNTIF, SUMIF, AVERAGEIF
• VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and XLOOKUP
• Pivot tables — summarising and slicing data
• Data validation and named ranges
• Charts and basic visualisation
• Conditional formatting for data storytelling

SQL is the universal language for talking to databases. Every analyst needs it.

• SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT
• Aggregate functions — COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX
• GROUP BY and HAVING
• JOINs — INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL
• Subqueries and CTEs (WITH statements)
• Window functions — ROW_NUMBER, RANK, LAG

Real-world data is messy. Cleaning it is 80% of the job.

• Identifying and handling missing values
• Removing duplicates and standardising formats
• Data type conversions
• Outlier detection and handling
• Merging and reshaping datasets
• Documenting your data cleaning process

The best insight in the world is worthless if you can't communicate it visually.

• Choosing the right chart — bar, line, scatter, pie (and when not to)
• Colour and labelling for clarity
• Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) dashboards
• Power BI or Tableau basics
• Storytelling with data — from chart to narrative
• Presenting findings to non-technical stakeholders

Python unlocks automation, advanced analysis, and machine learning. pandas is the essential library.

• Python basics — variables, lists, dicts, loops, functions
• pandas — DataFrames, indexing, filtering, groupby
• NumPy — arrays and numerical operations
• Matplotlib and Seaborn for charts in Python
• Jupyter Notebooks workflow
• Reading from CSV, Excel, and databases in Python

Employers hire analysts who can show their work. Build and publish real projects.

• Finding public datasets — Kaggle, Google Dataset Search
• Scoping an analysis project with a clear question
• End-to-end analysis — clean, explore, visualise, conclude
• Publishing notebooks on Kaggle or GitHub
• Writing clear data project READMEs
• Applying for analyst roles — portfolio tips