Data, Analytics & AI
Data analysis, business intelligence, AI engineering, and automation — turning data and models into decisions and reliable systems.
Career path patterns
How people actually get into these roles
The big picture
Data science and analytics roles are projected to grow much faster than average internationally — around 34% over the coming decade. Business analysis, BI, AI, and automation paths share SQL, stakeholder communication, and evidence-based decision-making as core skills.
Key stat
Many senior data leaders at major tech companies came from humanities, economics, or social science — not computer science. Critical thinking and communication often matter as much as tooling.
Common path patterns
Roles in this industry
A Data Analyst collects, cleans, and interprets structured and unstructured data to help organisations make better decisions. Core work i...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£50,000 (junior to mid-level, UK). Senior Data Analyst roles £50,000–£70,000+. London and fintech roles command a premium.
View role →A Business Analyst (BA) acts as a bridge between business stakeholders and technical delivery teams. The role involves eliciting and docu...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£50,000 (junior to mid-level, UK). Senior BA and Lead roles £50,000–£75,000+. Contract rates £350–£600/day.
View role →A BI (Business Intelligence) Developer designs, builds, and maintains the reporting and analytics infrastructure that organisations use t...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£45,000 (junior to mid-level, UK). Senior BI Developers £45,000–£65,000. BI Architects and data platform leads £65,000–£90,000+. Financial services and technology sector roles in London typically sit at the higher end of each band.
View role →A Data Quality Analyst ensures that the data an organisation relies on for decisions, reporting, and operations is accurate, complete, co...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£45,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior Data Quality Analysts £45,000–£60,000. Data Quality Managers and Heads of Data Governance £60,000–£85,000+. Financial services and healthcare roles in London typically sit at the higher end of each band.
View role →An AI Prompt Engineer designs, tests, and refines the instructions — known as prompts — that guide large language models (LLMs) to produc...
Estimated salary: £35,000–£55,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior AI Prompt Engineers and AI Engineers £55,000–£85,000+. Staff and principal-level roles at tech companies and AI labs £85,000–£130,000+. The market is moving fast and salaries are not yet as standardised as in more established disciplines.
View role →An MLOps Support Analyst helps an organisation deploy, monitor, and maintain machine learning models in production, bridging the gap betw...
Estimated salary: £30,000–£48,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior MLOps Engineers £50,000–£75,000. ML Platform Engineers and Heads of MLOps £75,000–£110,000+. Financial services, tech, and AI-native company roles in London sit at the higher end. The discipline is in high demand and salaries have risen significantly since 2022.
View role →An Automation / RPA Analyst identifies, designs, and supports the deployment of software robots and automated workflows that replace or a...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£45,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior RPA Analysts and RPA Developers £45,000–£65,000. Automation Architects and Heads of RPA £65,000–£95,000+. Financial services and large public sector organisations at the higher end of each band. Contract day rates for experienced RPA developers range from £400–£700.
View role →A Sustainability Analyst researches, measures, and reports on an organisation's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance,...
Estimated salary: £28,000–£42,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior Sustainability Analysts £42,000–£60,000. Sustainability Managers and Heads of Sustainability £60,000–£90,000+. Financial services, energy, and FTSE-listed company roles typically sit at the higher end. Consulting roles at Big Four and specialist sustainability advisory firms offer competitive salaries with faster progression.
View role →An Energy Data Analyst collects, processes, and analyses data on energy consumption, generation, and costs to help organisations reduce t...
Estimated salary: £27,000–£42,000 (entry to mid-level, UK). Senior Energy Data Analysts £42,000–£58,000. Energy Managers and Heads of Energy £58,000–£85,000+. Energy suppliers, grid operators, and large industrial users at the higher end. Consulting roles in energy advisory practices offer competitive salaries with faster progression.
View role →
Data, Analytics & AI
Data Analyst
A Data Analyst collects, cleans, and interprets structured and unstructured data to help organisations make better decisions. Core work includes writing SQL queries, building dashboards and reports in tools like Power BI or Tableau, conducting statistical analysis, and communicating findings clearly to non-technical stakeholders. Analysts work across departments — marketing, operations, finance, product — translating business questions into data queries and turning results into actionable insight. The role sits on a spectrum between reporting (descriptive analytics) and more advanced analysis involving predictive modelling, A/B testing, or machine learning. Modern Data Analysts are expected to be proficient in SQL and at least one scripting language (typically Python or R), comfortable with cloud data platforms (e.g. BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks), and capable of designing analyses that are reproducible and well-documented. Data storytelling — presenting findings in a way that influences decisions — is an equally important skill.
Qualifications (summary)
No single mandatory qualification. Most employers assess candidates on SQL proficiency and portfolio work. Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate and Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst (PL-300) are widely recognised entry-level credentials. Python (via Codecademy, DataCamp, or university courses) is increasingly a baseline expectation. For more senior roles, knowledge of dbt, Airflow, or Spark, alongside cloud certifications (AWS/Azure/GCP data track), strengthens a profile significantly. A GitHub portfolio demonstrating real analytical projects is highly regarded.
Salary (if available)
£28,000–£50,000 (junior to mid-level, UK). Senior Data Analyst roles £50,000–£70,000+. London and fintech roles command a premium.
See industry eligibility & qualifications →
