The ever-evolving use of data in business has brought forth tons of career opportunities for analytics-savvy professionals. But in order to take advantage of these opportunities, you need to understand which individual skills you need but also understand how they are applied in a business environment.
Data visualization, or the ability to translate data into graphs, charts and other visualizations that communicate meaning to an audience, can seem like a very elementary skill, but it’s actually not that easy. In fact, the abundance of confusing data dashboards in the world is proof of this fact.
Data visualization is less about graphics and more about the broader story or message that you’re trying to communicate. In order to do data visualization well, you need to be able to synthesize tons of information, extract what’s important, and display it in a way that creates meaning, sparks insights and inspires action. Put simply: you need to become a data storyteller.
Data storytelling is a structured approach to communicating insights through a combination of data, visualization, and narrative. It is often something that you can learn in a classroom or an online course and then refine over many years of practice.
Regardless of where you start your career, improving your data visualizations through data storytelling will pave the way for a rich career in analytics.
If you’re looking to put your data visualization skills to use, here are some of the top entry- and mid-level data visualization jobs and their salaries, according to Payscale.com
Average Salary (US) source: payscale.com
Salary Range: According to PayScale, the salary for a data analyst with data visualization skills can range from $49,000 - $86,000, with an average salary falling at $64,702.
Key Tasks & Responsibilities:
The job of a data analyst is a unique data visualization job because it can be used in many different contexts. In fact, any department that requires data to make decisions will call on analysts to help make those decisions. In this role, it’s possible that you may be serving the analytical needs of just one department, or many. Where you live in the organization, depends on the company’s size, structure, and needs.
Here are some of the key tasks you can expect as an analyst:
Additional Required Skills:
Salary Range: According to PayScale, the salary for a data scientist with data visualization skills can range from $58,000 - $122,000, with an average salary falling at $93,747.
Key Tasks & Responsibilities:
The role of a data scientist was born out of the opportunity created by big data: as businesses amassed a volume of data and information, data scientists, armed with new technologies were tasked with transforming it into useful formats.
Like analysts, the job of a data scientist can vary significantly based on the company’s industry, business model and goals. However, at a general level, data scientists are tasked with synthesizing large data sets, looking for order and patterns within data, spotting trends and building models that can help a business run more efficiently, serve its customers better, and achieve higher profit margins. It’s all about using data to impact the bottom line.
Additional Required Skills:
Recommended: Cracking the Code of Designing Effective Information Visualizations
Salary Range: According to PayScale, the salary for a business intelligence analyst with data visualization skills can range from $48,000 - $89,000, with an average salary falling at $64,156.
Key Tasks & Responsibilities:
Business intelligence analysts play an integral role in helping a company achieve true operational efficiency. They use business data to shed light on optimization opportunities, help companies to better manage its workforce, and guide cross-functional and interdepartmental collaboration.
The best business intelligence analysts draw on a combination of hard skills, such as programming, modeling, and advanced statistics, as well as soft skills like communication, problem-solving and analytical thinking.
As the company’s internal data whisperer, they are often responsible for:
Additional Required Skills:
Salary Range: According to PayScale, the salary for a software engineer with data visualization skills can range from $78,000 - $131,000 with the average salary coming in at $98,541.
Key Tasks & Responsibilities:
As tech companies look to build data analysis and data visualization capabilities into their software platforms, software engineers play a key role in the design and development of these features.
The role of a software engineer requires collaborating with a variety of roles, including product managers, designers, and other business stakeholders. You need to have strong attention to detail and be passionate about creating beautiful products that convey information elegantly and effectively.
Additional Required Skills:
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Salary Range: According to PayScale, the salary for an analytics manager with data visualization skills can range from $76,000 - $108,000 with the average salary coming in at $81,380.
Analytics managers are charged with creating effective strategies for collecting data, analyzing it, conducting research and implementing analytics solutions for the companies they work for.
Central to an analytics managers’ success is their team - many times they are tasked with leading and managing a team of analysts to complete analytics tasks and projects efficiently, accurately and on time. However, because they typically occupy a player-coach role, they will step in from time to time and run their own analysis, creating complex reports and communicating progress to business stakeholders.
Additional Required Skills:
Learn data storytelling strategies used by analytics leaders at Starbucks, TD Ameritrade, Nike, Amazon, Starbucks, World Vision and more through Data Story Academy’s online data storytelling course.
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