Data Analyst vs Business Analyst | Which Is Right For You?

Key Takeaways

what is going on everybody my name is Alex Freiburg and today what are we talking about the difference between a business analyst and a data analyst over the past year I have been the only data analyst or analyst of any kind on my team and we just recently hired a business analyst that was actually on the hiring team who hired this business analyst and so we're super excited to have him on board and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the differences between these two positions both in a team or by themselves so we're looking at four main things today the first is responsibilities the next is qualifications skills and then salary so let's start off with responsibilities so first let's look at the business analyst the business analyst is gonna work with the clients a lot to understand what they need and what the problems that they're having and then they're gonna work with the managers and try to figure out how that's gonna work within their team the next thing that they do is use current data to outline the problem so they're gonna have to go in and actually look at the data and then understand what that client is wanting so that they can describe to the team what they are trying to solve and what they're looking for and the next thing that they're gonna do is outline and communicate what the client actually wants to the team what is the problem what are they trying to solve and how are we gonna get there and often time the business analyst is going to do all the analysis around that and then actually hand it off to either the programming team or a data analyst to look into this further and actually solve the issue the data analyst is going to actually work with the programming teams that collect and analyze the data and so the difference between these two is the business analyst is typically going to work most with the client side and with the managers while the data analyst is going to work more with the programming side next they're going to use pre-existing data actually solve the problem and so the business analyst is going to bring the problem and define the problem and bring that to the programming team and then the data analyst along with the programmers or the developers are going to actually solve the problem and figure out a solution next they're gonna create reports and dashboards and that is a part of basically any data analyst job or you're creating some type of visualization and the very last thing that you're going to do is present analytical findings to the team so the business analyst is gonna actually bring the problem to the team where the data analyst is gonna present back to the team with their findings and with a possible or potential solution next we're going to look at qualifications and the qualifications are actually pretty similar for the business unless you're gonna need a bachelor's degree in typically it's gonna be something in business and administration finance economics something business-related sometimes you might need a master's degree and for the most part where you see in business analysts as they often have MBAs data analysts typically don't have MBAs but let's look at that one next so for a data analyst you also would need a bachelor's degree and that's typically in something like computer science statistics mathematics economics or finance and as you can see there is a lot of overlap between the business analyst and the data analyst and you also may need a master's for some positions and typically isn't an MBA like a business analyst sometimes they're looking for things like statistics or mathematics or an actual analytics master's degree and so those are some of the qualifications between these two positions so for business analyst you're gonna need skills like sequel Microsoft Access and Excel and those are some of the more technical skills that you're gonna need but you're also going to need really good soft skills such as communication skills presentation skills and just general people skills be able to communicate and talk effectively with the clients or with the team so for a day the aimless you're gonna need a little bit more technical skills and so you're gonna be using things like sequel or in Python tableau or a data visualization tool you're gonna be doing data modeling you'll need to know SAS or SPSS Excel and then some type of cloud platform like azor or Amazon Web Services now let's look at salary for the business analyst for an entry-level position you can find anything from thirty five to fifty thousand for a mid-level fifty to seventy-five thousand and then for a senior anything from seventy five to ninety five thousand and for a data analyst for an entry-level position you can find forty five to sixty thousand for a mid-level 65 to 85 thousand and for a senior level position anything from 85 to 110 thousand I think that a data analyst makes a little bit more on average than a business analyst because a data analyst uses a lot more technical skills and oftentimes that small companies or even large companies sometimes a data analyst is expected to work with clients and work with managers and work with teams in general and so a business isn't even necessary at some companies a business analyst typically can't replace a data analyst because a business analyst normally doesn't have the technical skills that a data so that is why I think the data analyst makes a little bit more on average so that is all I have on the difference between a business analyst and a data analyst thank you so much for watching I really appreciate it if you like this video be sure to LIKE and subscribe below and I'll see in the next video