Skip to main content

We are living in an era that is dominated by Big Data and it is hard for one to imagine the skill set as well as the expertise of the data analyst. A question arises about the skill sets of data analysts and Big Data Analysts.

Are they the same? Practically, big data analysts are also data analysts in the truest form.

However, data analysts mostly deal with structured data and big data analysts deal with Big Data which primarily consists of raw, unstructured and also semi-structured data. As a result, a data analyst job differs from big data analyst jobs

Let us understand the job profile of a Big Data Analyst.

Who is a Big Data Analyst?

When it comes to IT jobs in Dubai, often the description of the job of a data scientist and that of a big data analyst overlap as both these job profiles deal with Big Data jobs.

Data scientists are mainly engaged in cleaning, gathering, processing and analyzing Big Data to uncover insights and patterns which are meaningful. Big Data analysts do the work of understanding these insights and also identifying different ways to transform the data into business strategies that are actionable.

Thus, we can say that big data analysts have one main goal which is to help the business realize the true potential of Big Data and influence the business decisions in a  positive way. 

Big Data Analysts gather data from different sources and the data warehouses of the companies interpret and analyze the data to get extract the information which can prove to be useful for the businesses.

They need to report and visualize their findings in the form of graphs, reports, charts, etc.

This helps in a better understanding of the stakeholders.

Once the data is readable by everyone the entire IT and the business team can have a brainstorm session on how to use the insights in improving business decisions, boosting revenues, enhancing the satisfaction of customers and much more.

Big Data analysts are also summoned by businesses in order to do a market analysis which is comparative to help in identifying the key industry trends.

In order to analyze as well as interpret data, Big Data Analysts spend a lot of time working with a variety of Big Data, and analytics tools like :

  • * Microsoft Excel,
  • * MS Office,
  • * SAS,
  • * Tableau,
  • * QlikView,
  • * Hadoop,
  • * Spark,
  • * MongoDB,
  • * Cassandra,
  • * Hive,
  • * Pig, R,
  • * Python,
  • * SQL, etc. 

What are the skills required for becoming a Big Data Analyst?


Let’s have a look at the skillset which is required for a Big Data Analyst Job. 

Programming

A Big Data Analyst must possess the skills of coding and should be comfortable,  in at least two programming languages (the more, the merrier).

The base for performing numerical and statistical analysis on large data sets is coding. Java, C++, Scala, Julia, R, Python are some of the coding languages which are used in Big Data Analysis. It is very easy to pick up other programming languages once you get a hang of these. 

Quantitative Aptitude 

In order to perform data analysis, one must possess a firm grasp over mathematics as well as statistics which includes

  • * Linear Algebra,
  • * Multivariable Calculus,
  • * Probability Distribution,
  • * Hypothesis Testing,
  • * Bayesian Analysis,
  • * Time Series and
  • * Longitudinal Analysis, among other things.

These skills are required for making speculations that help in making business decisions. 

Knowledge of computational frameworks

The job of a Big Data Analyst is a versatile one and hence you need to be comfortable in working with multiple technologies along with computational frameworks which include both basic tools like Excel and SQL and also advanced frameworks such as

  • * Hadoop,
  • * MapReduce,
  • * Spark,
  • * Storm,
  • * SPSS,
  • * Cognos,
  • * SAS, and
  • * MATLAB.

Data warehousing skills

Every Big Data Analyst needs to have proficiency in working with both relational and non-relational database systems such as

  • * MySQL,
  • * Oracle,
  • * DB2,
  • * NoSQL,
  • * HDFS,
  • * MongoDB,
  • * CouchDB as well as
  • * Cassandra to name a few. 

Business acumen

It is necessary for the Big Data Analyst to visualize the data from their findings in order to provide insights from a business angle. To use the extracted data a big data analyst must have an acute understanding of the business world. Big Data Analysts have the ability to understand new business opportunities and thus it is necessary that they possess the business acumen.

Salary of a Business Analyst

The salary of Big Data professionals depends on a variety of factors which include the educational background, level of expertise in Big Data, years of working experience, and so on.

There is a demand for software jobs in Dubai and thus it is very helpful to have the big data analyst skill in your resume. It will definitely boost your career and give you good growth in your salary as well as experience.

Big Data Analyst is a developing career which is going to be in great demand in the years to come. 

Leave a Reply