Career path
Business Intelligence Analyst
A business intelligence analyst builds the reporting layer a company runs on — the dashboards, metrics, and definitions that everyone trusts. It's a step beyond ad-hoc analysis: the focus is on durable, self-serve reporting rather than one-off answers.
What the job actually is
You turn scattered data into a stable source of truth. That means modelling the business into clean metrics, building dashboards people actually use, and — most importantly — agreeing definitions so "active user" or "revenue" means the same thing in every meeting. Much of the value is in governance: a number nobody disputes is worth more than a clever chart.
A typical day
Writing SQL against a warehouse, maintaining dashboards in a BI tool, and fielding requests like "can we see this split by region?" You'll also spend time documenting metrics, chasing down why two reports disagree, and gradually shifting stakeholders from asking you for numbers to serving themselves.
Skills that matter
- SQL — the core of the role; you live in it.
- A BI platform — Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, including its modelling layer.
- Data modelling — shaping raw tables into clean, reusable metrics.
- Stakeholder communication — translating vague asks into precise definitions.
- An eye for data quality — catching the broken pipeline before the exec does.
How to switch in
The most natural move is from data analysis, financial reporting, or operations, where you already build reports — the step up is treating reporting as a product with versioned definitions and a maintained model. A portfolio of polished dashboards built on real or public data shows you can do more than pull a one-off figure.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a BI analyst and a data analyst?
They overlap heavily. A data analyst leans toward ad-hoc, investigative questions; a BI analyst leans toward building and maintaining the reusable reporting layer the whole company relies on. Many roles blend both.