Your Next Data Analyst May Already Work for You

The person who already built the spreadsheet

In many Oklahoma companies, someone in finance, operations or customer service keeps the spreadsheet everyone depends on. They pull numbers, fix formulas and answer the questions no report covers. Nobody calls them a data analyst. In practice, they are halfway there.

When a data role opens, most employers post the job and look outside. It is worth looking inside first.

What the evidence says

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 surveyed more than 1,000 large employers around the world. Analytical thinking was the top core skill, with seven in ten companies calling it essential. AI and big data topped the list of fastest growing skills.

Employers in the survey plan to train. Eighty five percent said they plan to make upskilling their workforce a priority, and half plan to move staff from shrinking roles into growing ones. The report estimates that if the world's workforce were 100 people, 59 would need training by 2030. Of those, 29 could be trained in their current roles and 19 could be trained and moved into new roles in the same company.

Skill gaps were the biggest barrier to change that employers named. Sixty three percent called them a major barrier.

Demand for data skills keeps rising. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of data scientists will grow 35 percent from 2025 to 2035, far faster than the 3 percent average for all jobs. It expects about 24,800 openings each year across the country.

Training can be close to home. Oklahoma CareerTech runs 29 technology center districts on 62 campuses, and it says adults pay nominal tuition.

Why internal moves into data roles stall

No one looks

Hiring managers often do not know who in other departments has data skills. Those people may not know a data role is open.

The current manager wants to keep them

A strong spreadsheet person is valuable where they are. Their manager may quietly discourage the move. That can push the person to look outside the company instead.

Training has no plan

Telling someone to take a few online courses is not a plan. Without real projects, set time to learn and someone to check the work, progress stalls.

How to move a current employee into a data role

1. 1Before you post the next data analyst job, ask managers who on their teams already works with data every day.
2. 2Talk with each possible candidate about the role, the pay and what they would need to learn.
3. 3Write down the skills the role needs, such as SQL, cleaning data and building dashboards.
4. 4Give the person a real project with your data and a mentor who reviews the work.
5. 5Set aside work hours for training, not only evenings and weekends.
6. 6Look at adult courses at your local technology center alongside online training.
7. 7Agree on a timeline and the pay change that comes with the new role.
8. 8Fill the old job so the person is not doing two jobs at once.

Some roles still need an outside hire. A senior data engineer or a database administrator for a busy production system usually takes years of experience. Internal moves tend to work best for analyst and reporting roles.

What this means if you hire data people in Oklahoma

An internal candidate already knows your customers, your products and where the numbers come from. A new hire needs time to learn all of that. With training and a real project, someone already on your team can become a strong analyst.

Look inside before you look outside. When the right person is not there, that is the time to search.

At Oklahoma Data Partners, we recruit only for data roles and only in Oklahoma. We help employers decide which data roles they can grow from inside and which need an experienced outside hire, then find that person. If you want to plan your data team, book a consultation.