Free data analytics guides
Short, practical answers for students and career-switchers learning data analytics: what to learn, in what order, and the questions interviews actually ask.
How to Become a Data Analyst in 2026: Step-by-Step Roadmap
To become a data analyst, learn the tools in this order: Excel, SQL, basic statistics, one BI tool (Power BI or Tableau), then Python with pandas. Build 3 or 4 portfolio projects on real datasets and practise SQL interview questions. Studying 1 to 2 hours a day, most beginners are ready to apply in 4 to 6 months.
15 SQL Interview Questions for Data Analysts (With Answers)
Data analyst SQL interviews mostly test five things: filtering and aggregation (WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING), joins (INNER vs LEFT), handling NULLs and duplicates, window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, running totals) and turning a business question into a query. The 15 questions below cover all five, with an example answer for each.
Excel vs SQL vs Python vs Power BI: What Should a Data Analyst Learn First?
Learn Excel first (1 to 2 weeks), then SQL (the most important and most tested analyst skill), then Power BI or Tableau for dashboards, then Python. Excel teaches how data is structured, SQL gets data out of databases, a BI tool presents it, and Python handles large or repeated analysis.
Statistics for Data Analysis: 12 Concepts Every Data Analyst Uses
Data analysts mainly use descriptive statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, percentiles), distributions, sampling, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests and p-values, A/B testing, correlation and simple regression. You do not need advanced maths: you need to know which measure fits the data and how to explain what a result means.