# Data analyst

> The person who turns a business question into numbers, and the numbers into an answer.

- Level: Basic
- Topics: Data
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-analyst/
- In Spanish: [Analista de datos](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/data-analyst/)

A **data analyst** takes a question someone in the business has, like "why did sales drop in March?" or "which stores sell the most on weekends?", finds the data that can answer it, and explains what the data says. The result is usually a chart, a short report or a dashboard, plus a plain-language conclusion.

The everyday toolkit is modest and powerful: spreadsheets, SQL to pull data out of databases, a business intelligence tool like Power BI, Tableau or Looker to build charts, and sometimes Python. Much of the time goes into steps nobody sees: understanding what each column really means, cleaning odd values and checking that the numbers match what finance reports.

It is often confused with data science. The line is blurry, but a data analyst mostly describes and explains what already happened, while a data scientist more often builds models that predict or automate. A good analyst is valuable less for fancy techniques than for asking the right follow-up question and saying clearly what the data does and does not show.

## An analogy

A detective for numbers. Someone brings a case ("we lost customers, why?"), the analyst gathers clues from the records, rules out suspects and comes back with the most likely explanation and the evidence for it.

## Keep in mind

- Answers business questions with data, mostly about what already happened.
- Typical tools: spreadsheets, SQL, BI tools, sometimes Python.
- A big part of the job is understanding and cleaning the data before analyzing it.
- Different from a data scientist, who more often builds predictive models.

## Go deeper

- [Data analysis on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_analysis)

## Related terms

- [Dashboard](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/dashboard/): One screen of charts and numbers that shows how something is doing at a glance.
- [Spreadsheet vs database](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/spreadsheet-vs-database/): Why a company that runs on Excel eventually needs a real database.
- [SQL](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/sql/): The language you use to ask a database questions.
- [Database](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/database/): An organized store of data that programs can search and update safely.
- [Business intelligence](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/business-intelligence/): Turning a company's data into reports and dashboards people use to decide.
- [Power BI](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/power-bi/): Microsoft's tool for turning company data into interactive charts and reports.
- [Python](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/python/): A popular programming language known for being easy to read and quick to write.
- [Data science](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/data-science/): Using statistics, code and business sense to answer questions with data.