5 Data Visualisation Jobs (+ Ways to Build Your Skills Now)

Data visualisation is a powerful way to transform data from numbers and figures into a beautiful graph or chart. Being able to see the data and what it means can drive individuals and teams to enact meaningful change. For example, award-winning data journalist Gurman Bhatia creates impactful data visualisations and infographics on important social and political issues in India [1]. One of Bhatia's notable projects includes visualising data on politicians during the 2019 Indian elections [2].

Forecasts for the global data visualisation market expect a compound annual growth rate of 10.95 per cent from 2024 to 2029 [3]. As big data and technology industries continue to grow, customised reports and dashboards will be increasingly important. Jobs in data visualisation, or jobs that require data visualisation as a skill, will continue to grow. Read on to delve deeper into data visualisation and its associated jobs, including tips to get started in this field.

What is data visualisation?

Data visualisation is the representation of information and data using visuals such as graphs, charts, maps, and more. Data professionals who incorporate data visualisation in their work use tools to present data to non-technical audiences to tell a story about the data that helps businesses make data-driven decisions.

Data visualisation can be the sole focus of a job role, such as a data visualisation engineer or specialist. But more often than not, it is a skill used in data-oriented roles to portray data and information in creative ways, such as dashboards that show weekly trend reports or bar graphs for investor pitch decks.

5 data visualisation jobs

The following are 5 data visualisation jobs to know, so you can begin building your skills today.

What type of degree should you get?

For each of these jobs, a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, statistics, mathematics, business administration, or data science is highly recommended. In most cases, earning a master’s degree can boost your ability to land better, higher-paying job opportunities.

1. Data visualisation engineer

Data visualisation engineers (or specialists) are responsible for the design and development of data visualisations and dashboards using data sets from various sources. They are experts in data and storytelling and specialists at business intelligence (BI) tools to create user-friendly dashboards for business teams. Data visualisation engineers may also write and test analytics platform code, toggle with software tools like Tableau or Looker to produce dashboards, and fix bugs whenever necessary.

Annual base salary: ₹10,90,000 [4]

2. Data analyst

As a data analyst, you’ll be in charge of collecting, cleaning, and interpreting data sets to answer a question or solve a problem within an organisation. Data analysts can be found across industries as varied as finance, science, government, and criminal justice. Questions that data analysts might answer include: What segment of customers should this advertising campaign target? Which age group is most vulnerable to COVID-19? Data visualisation skills will enable you to present this information to the team with graphs and charts.

To become a data analyst, you’ll want to learn technical skills such as Excel, R or Python programming language, statistics, and SQL.

You can practice statistical analysis, data management, and programming using SQL, Tableau, and Python in Meta's beginner-friendly Data Analyst Professional Certificate. Designed to prepare you for an entry-level role, you can complete this self-paced program in just five months.

Annual base salary: ₹7,18,000 [5]

3. Data scientist

Data scientists look for trends and patterns in data to help organisations make informed decisions about their operations, marketing, and more. They create algorithms and data models to forecast outcomes, sometimes adopting machine learning techniques to improve products or tools. Once data scientists are comfortable with their outcomes, they’ll present their findings and recommendations to stakeholder teams, employing data visualisations to help make a compelling case. 

Annual base salary: ₹13,00,005 [6]

4. Business intelligence analyst

Business intelligence analysts analyse and interpret data specific to businesses, such as sales revenue, market trends, and customer engagement metrics. BI analysts are always looking for potential improvements to drive business profitability and relevance in the market. They’ll share their findings with the team, crafting reports to present to other teams or clients on how to grow the business. 

Annual base salary: ₹8,80,000 [7]

5. Analytics manager

Analytics managers are in charge of translating data into actionable insights for an organisation. They typically lead a team of data analysts, coaching them to complete data analytics projects with accuracy and efficiency. Together, they’ll develop strategies, track their performance, and oversee analytics operations. They may transform their analyses into reports and communicate with stakeholders.

Annual base salary: ₹27,00,000 [8]

How to build your data visualisation skills

Building your data visualisation skills requires a combination of passion for numbers, as well as a desire to transform the right data into stunning visualisations. The following tips can help you get started:

Get familiar with data visualisation tools and software.

Being able to navigate and use tools such as Excel and other data visualisation software is critical to success in your data visualisation journey. Understanding how to use at least one or two software platforms (like Tableau) is beneficial because you can easily translate those skills from one platform to another.

Tools such as Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Plotly, Sisense, and QlikView allow you to create graphs, charts, and dashboards for organisations. You’ll want to be able to create several different types of data visualisations, to create outputs for reports, presentations, and more. Some techniques include infographics, scatter plots, fever charts, and population pyramids.

Be comfortable working with data and analysing it.

Beyond using the BI tools, you’ll want to be an expert in wading through structured and unstructured data from several sources to make sense of it all. Not only should you be able to collect, sort, and clean up the data, but you should also be able to analyse it from multiple perspectives to generate efficient, logical, and actionable outcomes.

Get started in data analytics from Google.

With Google’s Data Analytics professional certificate, you can receive a solid foundation in analysing data. You’ll even learn how to visualise them on commonly used platforms.

Develop excellent storytelling and communication skills.

Some data-oriented roles focus only on sorting and managing data. But for any job that requires data visualisation, the role goes beyond producing beautiful charts and graphs. You’ll have opportunities to explain what data sets you used, your analysis, why you used this visualisation, and your strategic recommendations. Being able to engage your audiences with visual and verbal storytelling is a skill that can take you far in data visualisation jobs.

In your role, you may work with stakeholders such as product managers, data engineers, data analysts, and IT support. Together, you’ll collaborate to create high-performing, scalable solutions. To effectively work as a team, you’ll want to speak their respective languages, using the correct terminology and conceptual ideas to ensure your story and recommendations have authority.

Learn data visualisation skills with Coursera

Data visualisation helps you break down complex data into intuitive visuals like bar charts, scatter plots, and interactive dashboards, aiding comprehension and effective communication. Acquiring data visualisation skills can help you land lucrative data roles such as data scientist or data analyst.

IBM’s Data Analysis and Visualisation can be beneficial if you want to learn how to use Excel spreadsheets for data analysis and create stunning visualisations with Cognos. Start learning the foundations of data visualisation with a free seven-day trial of Coursera Plus.