What employers ask data analysts for in 2026: three counts

Which analyst skills are actually in demand? If you ask what employers ask data analysts for, the public job-post counts give one clear answer: SQL first, then a middle group of Python, Power BI and Excel, with Tableau depending on where you look. The order is fairly stable. The percentages are not, and you should know why before you build a study plan on them.

No official body publishes a skill-by-skill count for Indian analyst jobs. What exists are counts made by job aggregators and by a company that places candidates. Their methods are only partly described, so read the numbers as directional. Three are open to read today.

The three counts

Skill	JobGlance, 3,148 postings 1	Real Analyst Jobs, 78 Indian listings 2	AccioJob, 328 Indian job descriptions 3
SQL	76.7%	67%	60%
Python	52.7%	44%	41%
Power BI	43.7%	36%	43%
Tableau	43%	33%	2%
Excel	36.6%	not reported	81%

Each sample is different:

• JobGlance ¹ takes live postings whose title names "Data Analyst", from English-language job boards. It leans towards the US: 1,246 of the 3,148 postings are American and 239 are Indian. It recalculates daily.
• Real Analyst Jobs ² counts current listings in India, drawn from nine job boards. At 78 listings it is small, and the page does not say how skills were extracted.
• AccioJob ³ counted 328 job descriptions from companies that hire through it. The set mixes data analyst, business analyst, data engineer and data scientist roles. AccioJob sells training and placement, so weigh its figures with that in mind. It does not publish its keyword rules.

Percentages add up to more than 100 because one posting names several skills.

What employers ask data analysts for, skill by skill

SQL is the point of agreement. It is first in JobGlance's and Real Analyst Jobs' lists, and second in AccioJob's, behind Excel. If you learn one thing before applying, learn to write joins, aggregations and window functions without looking them up.

Python and Power BI sit in the middle. Python appears in about 41–53% of postings and Power BI in about 36–44%. Neither is universal. With SQL, they are what most "required skills" lists carry.

Excel and Tableau are where the samples split.

• Excel is 37% in JobGlance's postings and 81% in AccioJob's Indian descriptions. JobGlance also shows Excel falling by about 10 points in senior postings compared with mid-level ones ¹. One reading is that Excel is assumed in entry-level and MIS-type roles and left unsaid in senior ones, but the pages do not test that.
• Tableau is 2% in AccioJob's set, 33% in Real Analyst Jobs' Indian listings and 43% in JobGlance's. The two Indian samples differ by a wide margin. Read it as a warning about sample choice, not as a verdict on Tableau.

The softer requirements are counted too. JobGlance finds "analytics" in 71% of postings, "data quality" in 40%, "decision making" in 37% and "automation" in 28% ¹. AccioJob has communication skills in 27% of descriptions ³. The words are loose, but employers describe the job as more than a tool.

AI is entering the list. JobGlance records "artificial intelligence" in 41% of postings, and the gap between senior and mid-level postings is about 16 points ¹. AccioJob finds generative AI in only 2% of its descriptions ³. The samples differ, and the India-only set mentions it far less.

What other sources say about the stack

LinkedIn's Skills on the Rise 2026 for India lists the data and analytics stack as querying, database optimisation, data storytelling and data-driven decision-making ⁴. That matches the job-post counts: querying is SQL, and storytelling is the dashboard and the explanation that goes with it. The coverage does not describe LinkedIn's method in detail.

Microsoft describes the Power BI data analyst as someone who prepares, models, visualises and analyses data, and manages and secures Power BI, and says the candidate should be proficient in Power Query and DAX ⁶. That is a vendor's own definition, useful as a checklist for the Power BI layer.

LinkedIn's Jobs on the Rise list for India (jobs started between January 2023 and July 2025) ranks no data analyst role, but names data analyst as a common earlier role of people who moved into the fast-growing AI jobs ⁷.

The market behind the counts

Counts show what postings ask for, not how many postings exist. Indeed data reported in September 2026 shows Indian postings for data and analytics down 14% over recent months, while all postings were up year on year ⁵. The report notes that it mainly reflects formal-sector employment. With fewer postings and more applicants per role, a posting that lists SQL and Power BI is read by people who can usually show both.

A skills map to measure yourself against

Use the counts as tiers, then check them against five postings for the role you want.

1. Tier 1, asked almost everywhere: SQL (joins, grouping, window functions) and spreadsheets for analysis and reporting.
2. Tier 2, asked in roughly 4 in 10 postings: one BI tool (Power BI first in the Indian counts, Tableau in some) and Python for cleaning and analysis.
3. Tier 3, rising: statistics you can explain to a manager, workflow automation, and checking AI output before relying on it.

For each skill, ask whether you could show it: a query, a dashboard, a cleaned dataset. TTFA's Applied Data Analytics course covers the same layers, SQL, Excel, Power BI, Tableau and Python, with a module on checking AI output.

What we don't know

These counts do not tell you how many postings exist in your city, which skills decide a shortlist, or whether a keyword was a requirement or a "nice to have". Naukri, foundit and Indeed hold that data and publish only summaries. Until they publish skill-level counts with their method, three samples of different size are the best public evidence. They agree about SQL and disagree about most of the rest.

What to do with this

Pick five postings for the role you want, tally the skills yourself, and compare with the table. Where your tally disagrees with the table, trust your tally.

This is the first note in "The analyst's stack, one layer a week". The next one, "From MIS in Excel to data analyst: a 16-week path, with what to build each month", takes the Excel work many readers already do and sets out what to build in each month on the way to the query layer.

Frequently asked questions

What do employers ask data analysts for most often?

SQL, in the counts that rank it against the full list: 77% of JobGlance's postings and 67% of Real Analyst Jobs' Indian listings ¹². Python, Power BI and Excel follow, with Tableau depending on the sample.

Is Power BI or Tableau asked for more in India?

Power BI, in all three counts. It is at 36% against Tableau's 33% in Real Analyst Jobs' Indian listings ², and 43% against 2% in AccioJob's Indian descriptions ³. JobGlance has them level at about 43–44% ¹.

Is Excel still needed for data analyst jobs?

In many roles, yes. AccioJob finds it in 81% of Indian descriptions ³, while JobGlance finds it in 37% of postings and less often in senior ones ¹. Read your target postings.

How reliable are these percentages?

They are directional. Each count comes from an aggregator or a placement company, the samples differ in size and region, and the extraction rules are not fully published.