BI Analyst: responsibilities, education, skills and career path

Builds business intelligence reporting and KPIs that track performance across the company.

Entry

Intermediate

Coding

Medium

Key skills

BI tools (Power BI/Tableau)SQLKPI definitionSemantic modelling

Common progression

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Career overview

The BI Analyst designs and maintains the business intelligence layer: KPIs, dashboards, semantic models and reporting that track company performance. They translate business metrics into reliable data products. The role leads to BI Engineer, Data Engineer or Data Architect positions.

Main responsibilities

Build BI reports and dashboards
Create data visualisations and stories
Model and query relational databases
Model and maintain the data warehouse
Guarantee data quality, freshness and lineage
Keep technical documentation up to date
Prepare and execute change requests in production
Analyse application logs to identify root causes
Mentor junior team members and review their work
Automate recurring tasks with scripts

Technical skills

BI tools (Power BI/Tableau)90%

SQL85%

Semantic modelling82%

KPI definition85%

Data warehousing concepts78%

ETL basics72%

Business acumen82%

Storytelling80%

Technologies

Power BITableauLookerSQLSSASSSISSSRSSnowflakeBigQueryRedshiftdbtExcelPythonGitAirflowSAP BWOracle BIConfluenceJupyter

Education level

Education requirements vary depending on the company, country and experience. Professional experience, certifications and technical skills can sometimes compensate for formal education.

High School / Bac

Less common

Bac+2 (2-year degree)

Less common

Bac+3 (Bachelor)

Common entry point

Bac+5 (Master / Engineering)

Common entry point