Career Profiles

Are you great with detail? Can you spot a pattern in anything? If you want a job finding meaning in data, a career as an analyst could be perfect for you.

To help you explore whether you’d suit an analyst role, we’ll explain:

What is an analyst?
Types of analyst jobs
What does an analyst do?
Analyst career path
Analyst salaries
Qualifications and training
Analyst skills
Pros and cons of being an analyst
Work-life balance of an analyst
Typical employers hiring analysts
Related jobs

What is an analyst?

Put simply, an analyst is someone who analyses things. Depending on the sector they work in, they’ll analyse different things. Analysts study data to do their job, but the type of data they look at depends on their exact role. Some analysts will dissect financial figures, while others will examine carbon emissions (for example).

Types of analyst jobs

There are several types of analyst jobs.

Here are just some of the analyst roles to consider:

Environmental analyst

As an environmental analyst, it’s your job to work out an organisation’s impact on the environment. You look at the outputs of an organisation and write reports based on your observations. Your job may include determining whether the organisation is complying with environmental policies.

Financial analyst

As a financial analyst, you’ll look through an organisation’s financial statements to spot any patterns or discrepancies. You might work with auditors (internal or external), discussing company finances and supporting their audit work.

Risk analyst

As a risk analyst, you investigate the risks that a company may face, assess how likely they are and suggest ways of mitigating them. Some risk analysts will study non-financial areas, such as operational, compliance, reputational and environmental risks. Others will focus on financial risk (eg. market changes). It’s also common for risk analysts to cover both financial and non-financial areas rather than specialise.

Data analyst

Data analysts look at what’s called ‘big data’ (extremely large amounts of data). It’s your job to analyse the big data in the context of current and past events to find patterns and understand what it means.

Economic analyst

As an economic analyst, you look at how the economy is performing and make informed suggestions for how you expect it to look in the future based on historical data, patterns and your expert knowledge.

What does an analyst do?

In any analyst job, regardless of the sector, you’re responsible for looking at data.

Here are typical tasks in most analyst roles:

Analyse large quantities of data on the specific topic that you’re interested in
Work with your team to find patterns
Present your findings to your teams, clients and stakeholders
Write reports of your analyses, identifying points of interest
Suggest areas of improvement and make recommendations for what a company can do to deal with any issues you’ve identified

Analyst career path

You can reach great heights as an analyst. While everyone’s journey is unique, here’s a career path you could follow as an analyst (in any industry):

Entry-level

You begin as a junior analyst. As an entry-level role, it’s your first chance to transfer your academic knowledge to practical experience. Here, you’ll gain the skills that you need for your future career.

Part of a junior job will involve working with more senior analysts. Sometimes, you’ll get to support them in their work. Other times, you’ll focus on your own projects.

Career progression

After gaining experience, you can become a mid-level analyst. Now you’re in a higher role, you’ll perform your work with less help from senior colleagues.

Once you’ve progressed even further, you can become a senior analyst. In a senior role, you’ll have advanced projects. You might work with more complex issues, datasets or patterns.

As a senior analyst, you can ask junior members of the team to assist you. For example, you can ask your colleagues to collect contextual data. You’ll then conduct the analysis and present your team’s results.

Future career

If you want to move into a management role, you could become an analytics manager. In a management position, you’re responsible for assigning work to your team and making sure everyone’s doing their job. You also may work to improve efficiencies, such as finding more effective analysis methods.

Analyst salaries

How much you’ll earn as an analyst will depend on your sector, role, experience, seniority, employer, location and more.

While it’s hard to know exactly what you’ll be paid, here are some average salary ranges to help you get an idea of your potential wages:

Environmental analysts usually earn between £25,000 (as a starter salary) to £50,000 (once experienced).
Financial analysts typically earn between £30,000 and £50,000 at the mid-level. To get into the role, you’ll usually need to start via an internship or in a junior data or reporting job with a lower salary (typically £23,000 and £30,000).
Risk analysts usually begin their careers as risk technicians, earning around £23,000. Once they’ve got enough experience, they can become a junior risk analyst and earn between £29,000 and £44,000. More senior analysts or managers can expect to earn between £46,500 and £78,000.
Data analysts tend to earn between £23,000 and £30,000 at entry level (depending on their employer). Higher-level positions pay up to £62,000.
Economic analysts typically have a salary range of £31,000 to £45,000.

Qualifications and training

Want to start your analytics career? The right education and experience will get the attention of hiring managers.

Here’s what will help you succeed:

Education

Most entry-level analyst roles require an undergraduate degree. Having a master’s degree is advantageous but it isn’t typically a requirement. The best degree to study will depend on the type of analyst job you want. A maths-focused (ie. Maths or Statistics) or Economics degree will be advantageous for a finance or risk analyst role.

Environmental analysts will usually have studied something related to the environment, such as Environmental Science, Chemistry or Bioscience. Ideally, your degree should combine the study of the environment with maths.

Data analysts also need a great understanding of maths. Relevant degrees span courses relating to finance, statistics, computer science and economics.

Haven’t studied a relevant subject? An alternative path to an analyst role is through completing an apprenticeship.

It’s when companies pay you to work for them and train you at the same time. Essentially, you’ll earn while you learn. Some apprenticeship schemes even include you attending university while working, with your tuition fees covered by the apprenticeship (in addition to your salary). An apprenticeship will give you a more specialised education focused on the job you’ll go on to do. If you’re interested in exploring apprenticeships, use the government apprenticeship search tool to see what’s available.

Work experience

To get a job in analytics, you’ll need to prove to a hiring manager that you’re the best candidate for the role. Having relevant work experience will help you stand out as a grad. Plus, it’ll give you a head start on some of the skills you’ll need to do the job.

So, how do you get work experience as an analyst? One option is to undertake an internship. To secure an internship, look at the opportunities advertised by companies in the industry you want to work in. They’ll normally take place during the summer and are aimed at students in their second and third years of uni or graduates wanting experience. Curious about internships? Explore the internships available right now and look out for analyst roles.

Don’t see what you’re looking for? It’s time for creative networking. You’ll need to either go to events and meet with people currently working in the industry or reach out to people through social media platforms like LinkedIn. Once you’ve built up some rapport, ask people if there are any internship opportunities at the company they work for. The more people you talk to about your desire to become an intern, the more chance that somebody will know of a suitable vacancy.

Analyst skills

To succeed as an analyst, you need a combination of hard skills and soft skills.

Hard skills

Maths. Being good at maths is usually a basic requirement for analyst roles. Having a high level of maths will help you perform mathematical analysis. You can improve your mathematical abilities through a university course or during an apprenticeship.
Data analysis. Analyst roles focus on data analysis. Being able to sort through data to find patterns is critical.
Specialised industry knowledge. As analysts specialise in different sectors (eg. finance, risk, environment and data), you’ll need a good understanding of the area that you want to work in.

Soft skills

Attention to detail. A good analyst will notice patterns in large quantities of data. You need to be detail-focused to spot things others might miss.
Concentration. You need to stay focused on the data you’re looking at, so concentration will come in handy.

Pros and cons of being an analyst

Even if you’re sure you want to be an analyst, you still need to know the pros and cons. There are positive and negative points about every job. It’s always good to know about them before you commit to a career path.

Pros

It’s satisfying when you find a pattern or meaning in data.
In some roles, you’ve got the opportunity to work in many different industries. For example, as an environmental analyst, you could work with energy companies, global businesses, public sector organisations or the government.
You could earn a high salary in top analyst jobs.
The day-to-day tasks an analyst conducts are structured, so it might suit you if you like routine.

Cons

You could have long working weeks in some roles.
In most analyst jobs, your day is spent staring at a screen full of numbers which can become repetitive. However, you’ll occasionally work in the field for some roles (ie. as an environmental analyst, you’ll sometimes need to inspect the impact a company is having at a physical location).
Most analyst jobs don’t involve travel to exciting places. But if you’re doing any form of fieldwork, you’ll need to be willing to work in various locations and sometimes with irregular working hours.
Analysis is time-consuming. You might feel that you haven’t got enough time to take every project to its limits, which can be frustrating.
Some jobs, like finance analyst, can be stressful due to the importance that’s put on the results of your work.
Due to the structured nature of the role, there’s usually little room for creativity.

Work-life balance of an analyst

As an analyst, the hours you work depend on the type of industry you’re in and your employment contract. Many analyst jobs require long hours and overtime, but how much will depend on the specific employer. You can expect to work longer days around key project deadlines.

In most analyst roles, you’ll do most of your work on a computer. Some companies will offer hybrid or remote positions so that you can work at home. Others will require analysts to attend their offices full-time.

Typical employers hiring analysts

Employers across many sectors need analysts.

Here are some companies to explore for jobs in analytics:

This article was last updated in June, 2025.

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