Data Analyst

Also known as: BI Analyst, Business Intelligence Analyst, Reporting Analyst, Business Data Analyst, Analyst.

What does a Data Analyst do?

A Data Analyst is an analyst who collects data from different sources, cleans it up and turns it into reports, dashboards and answers to specific business questions. They work for executives, finance, marketing, sales and operations teams, that is, for everyone who needs to decide by numbers rather than by gut feeling.

• write SQL queries and pull data from the warehouse, CRM, ad platforms and accounting systems;
• build and maintain dashboards and regular reporting in BI tools;
• check data quality and work out why the numbers in two reports do not match;
• answer one-off business questions, look for the causes of anomalies and automate manual data work.

When does a company need a Data Analyst?

A company needs a Data Analyst when it already has plenty of data, yet managers still build reports by hand in spreadsheets and argue about whose number is right. Common triggers: every department calculates revenue or conversion its own way; finance and marketing spend days on data pulls; a data warehouse exists, but nobody turns it into clear reports. The first Data Analyst is usually hired before the first Data Scientist. The role will not work if there is no data yet or it sits in scattered systems with no access: then you first need a Data Engineer to build the infrastructure.

Data Analyst vs Product Analyst: what's the difference?

A Data Analyst differs from a Product Analyst in working for the whole business and answering "what is happening in the numbers", while a Product Analyst is embedded in a product team and helps decide what to change in the product. NEWHR's hunting analytics describes the difference this way: the functions can be similar, but a Data Analyst has less business expertise and more technical expertise.

Data Analyst vs related roles: comparison

Why is it hard to hire a Data Analyst?

A strong Data Analyst is hard to hire because the market has many beginners and few experienced people who understand the business behind the numbers.

• The entry barrier is low: according to NEWHR's 2025 analyst market research, 57% of Data Analysts came into analytics from other professions, and a CV rarely shows the difference between a course graduate and someone with real experience.
• Job titles do not line up: what is called BI analytics in Russia is often just called Analyst or Data Scientist in international companies, so searching by one title misses part of the market.
• Experienced Data Analysts often move into product analytics or Data Engineering, so few senior specialists stay in this role.

How much does a Data Analyst earn?

According to NEWHR's 2025 analyst market research, the median salary range for a Data Analyst, take-home (net), in roubles is: Junior 70–100K ₽, Middle 190–250K ₽, Senior 300–380K ₽, Principal and Team Lead 380–500K ₽. The sample is mostly analysts working for Russian companies. SQL, Python, work with large data volumes, automation and understanding why the business needs the data all raise a Data Analyst's value.

What to decide before hiring a Data Analyst?

• Who are the analyst's main stakeholders, and which decisions will they make based on the numbers? If there are many stakeholders and no priorities, the analyst will drown in one-off data pulls.
• Is there a warehouse and shared metric definitions? If not, the first months will go into cleaning things up, and you need an analyst with engineering experience.
• Which BI and data stack is already in place? Experience with specific tools narrows the candidate pool sharply, so decide what is critical and what can be learned.
• Where will this person grow? Data Analysts often want to move into product analytics or Data Science, and without a clear path a strong specialist will leave.

Where to find a Data Analyst?

Data Analysts most often come from banks, retail, e-commerce, telecoms, marketplaces and consulting, where regular reporting and BI are the core of the work. A strong signal in a profile is reporting or a dashboard that replaced manual work and is used by executives, plus the ability to name a decision made on those numbers. NEWHR researches the analyst market and looks for candidates by the results of their work, not by responses to a job post.

How to assess a Data Analyst in an interview?

A Data Analyst is assessed with a practical SQL task on realistic data and a business case: two systems show different revenue, find out why. On the company side, the Head of Analytics or the data team lead usually takes part, along with the business stakeholder the analyst will work for.

Strong signals:

• before calculating, asks which decision will be made based on this number;
• checks the data for duplicates, gaps and discrepancies unprompted;
• explains the result to a stakeholder without jargon and with a conclusion, not just a table.

Red flags:

• describes the job as fulfilling data pull requests;
• cannot explain how a metric in their own dashboard is calculated;
• asks no questions about the business context of the task.

How long does it take to hire a Data Analyst?

We present the first candidates for the Data Analyst role within 5–7 days of the brief.

Related roles

• Product Analyst — works inside a product team and helps decide what to change in the product.
• Data Engineer — builds the pipelines and warehouse the analyst takes data from.
• Data Scientist — builds models and forecasts rather than reports.
• Head of Analytics — leads the analytics team and owns the company's analytics culture.
• CDO (Chief Data Officer) — owns the company's data at the executive level.