What Comes Next after Excel

[LtCmdrData]

I am looking to broaden my skill set and enhance my career prospects in managing and analyzing data. Besides Excel, what are the next programs to learn or skills to acquire? I see tons of job postings listing out required skills such as SQL, Java, Python, SAS, R, Tableau, etc. What do the members of this Excel community recommend?

 

[Joe4]

It really depends on where it is that you want to go in your career path.

If you like working with data, database-related stuff would not be a bad idea. That is things like SQL and Oracle. (Access is actually a scaled down version of SQL with a GUI front-end and VBA, so learning Access in conjunction with SQL is not a bad idea).

First, it is important to understand Relational Database Theory and Rules of Normalization, though.
Here is one link, though you can find many more with Google: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/283878/description-of-the-database-normalization-basics

If your thing is Web development, maybe you want to look at things like JavaScript, XML, HTML, etc.

 

[Jack in the UK]

next step probably will be Access and SQL they your know where you want to go / do

 

[Johnny C]

SAS is quite niche. If you like stats, there's some good money in it.

SQL and R and Tableau are worth knowing if you like squelching around in data. R isn't much used as a primary skill and anyone graduating in any form of modelling/analysis probably knows it so not much of a future in that, but worth knowing and it's free and quite easy on the brain. SQL Server is probably better than tableau as it's more common but that works both ways.

Access is an easy way into SQL, but again as a primary skill it's not much use, I've had one 3 month Access contract in 10 years. Access is limited in size (2Gb database last time I looked) and sloooow compared to SQL so most companies don't bother with it. Can be worth knowing as a back up skill though and it's very simple to learn, both as a Db but the VBA is fairly simple too.

 

[BarryL]

SAS is quite niche. If you like stats, there's some good money in it.

SQL and R and Tableau are worth knowing if you like squelching around in data. R isn't much used as a primary skill and anyone graduating in any form of modelling/analysis probably knows it so not much of a future in that, but worth knowing and it's free and quite easy on the brain. SQL Server is probably better than tableau as it's more common but that works both ways.

+1 for SAS. Although due to the high cost involved in SAS i think most companies are moving to Python. I know mine will be migrating in the next year. If you want to look at Python look for a good data science course. Datacamp is a good tool as is udemy. Make sure the course has things like pandas and numpy included in it. Python can be used for web applications as well as data science so make sure its a data course (like datacamp).

I would strongly disagree with Johnny C (respectfully) regarding R. It's one of the highest paid skills (in data) in the US and you can use it for predictive analysis, machine learning etc. Essentially its a mathematicians tool for statistical analysis (i.e. it pays the big bucks). Most companies look for Python or R. I wouldnt recommend trying to learn them both. Pick one and dedicate a lot of time to it.

SQL is a handy skill. If you want it to simply retrieve data a good introduction course will do the trick however if you want a job that deals with databases and updating/creating them then you will need to delve deep into the syntax/semantics.

TL;DR Learn Python after a short intro to SQL.