Where do data analysts end up? by UCOVI

In 2022 UCOVI web scraped the job-history sections of just over 1,000 LinkedIn profiles who were members of data science and analytics groups, and who had at least 15-months of experience in data analytics roles. The dataset (downloadable at the bottom of the linked page) is visualised below as a Sankey flow diagram showing the step-by-step transition from their first data analytics role (far left) to their current roles.

Just under half of the 1,047 LinkedIn data analysts are still in analytics (a fifth of these boomerang-ed via other roles). For the other half that have moved on, the data would seem to paint data analytics as a stepping stone to "the business side" of organisations and industries they work in, as opposed to more technical roles such as data engineering, data science and IT/software. 60% become business analysts or take up other roles in their organisations, 20% become data engineers, scientists or software/IT, and 6% become data leaders. A further 7.5% go freelance as data consultants.