10 online data analytics bootcamps to boost your career

Data analytics has become a key operation at organizations of all stripes, making professionals versed in extracting value from data hot commodities on the job market. While most of the buzz surrounds the data scientist role, data analysts remain a vital and growing segment of today’s growing analytics operations.

Data analysts must understand how to collect, organize and interpret data — and how to effectively communicate vital information to key stakeholders, clients and executives. As businesses collect more data every year, data analysts will remain vital players in the enterprise, surfacing the most useful data points and reducing the clutter that comes with data collection.

The job not only requires hard skills such as SQL, SharePoint and Excel, but you’ll also need the communication skills to design data visualization reports that business leaders and clients will understand. Here are 10 online data analysis bootcamps that can help you brush up on your data analyst skills or launch a new career.

10 online data analytics bootcamps

• Coursera
• Dataquest
• Datacamp
• Data Society
• General Assembly
• Global Knowledge
• Level
• MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society
• Springboard
• Udemy

Coursera

Online learning platform Coursera offers a wide variety of data analysis courses and specializations, which are offered through major colleges and universities. Specializations are multi-course series on a specific topic that culminate with an exam or capstone project, after which students receive a certificate of completion. Examples of specializations include Business Analytics from the University of Pennsylvania, Data Mining from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Data Analysis and Interpretation from Wesleyan University. Stand-alone courses include Managing Data Analysis and Getting and Cleaning Data from John Hopkins University. There are courses for all skill levels, so you should be able to find the right course to match your skill level and goals.

Dataquest

Dataquest has a specific program for those looking to become a data analyst. The online bootcamp includes working with real-life data sets, writing code and getting personalized feedback on your work. It’s designed to help you develop a strong portfolio that you can use to impress potential employers and vet your skills. You can subscribe to Dataquest with a free membership to get access to free missions, challenges and projects to build your portfolio. Paid membership options give you access to more programs and allow you to download content and access the member community or on-call data science professionals. 

Datacamp

Datacamp offers tailored programs based on where you want to take your career in data. You can choose the Data Analyst with Python or Data Analyst with R track, or the Quantitative Analyst with R program. There are also career tracks for R programmers, Python programmers, and data scientists with R or Python skills. You can choose from these tailored programs to gain specific skills to help you launch or advance your data analysis career.

Data Society

Data Society offers two programs, one aimed at executives and another for analysts or data scientists. The Data Science for Leaders program is for executives and leaders who want to understand how to leverage data science in their organization, with a strong focus on how to build a successful data science team. The Data Science for Analysts track doesn’t require any background in data science, math or programming. Data Society promises to teach you everything you will need to know to have a successful career as a data analyst.

General Assembly

General Assembly’s online Data Analysis Circuit pairs you with a one-on-one mentor who is a professional in the field. They’ll guide you through the courses, while offering feedback and helping you find ways to improve your skills. The classes include interactive activities, projects, videos and quizzes that you can access on your own schedule. General Assembly also offers flexible schedules to virtually meet with your personal mentor. It’s designed for absolute beginners and promises to teach you the skills to mine data using SQL, clean it up in Excel and design visualizations to demonstrate your findings. 

Global Knowledge

The Global Knowledge Data Analysis Boot Camp can be attended individually, but there’s also an option for companies to bring the course to their business to train multiple employees at once. It’s designed for those who already work with data and have a solid foundation but need to brush up on their skills. The course focuses on using data to deal with risk, performance, quality, forecasting, estimating, simulation and business process improvement. Students participate in hands-on exercises that reflect real-life scenarios, using Excel, R and Python to manage data.

Level

Level offers two courses in data analytics out of Northeastern University — you’ll get access to the Northeastern network, resources and career services. Level Set is an introductory course that is designed for people without any experience with analytics. Level Core is more in-depth, focusing on higher-level analytics skills such as SQL, R and Tableau. Classes are taught in person or online, with a minimum commitment of 15 hours in class per week for the part-time in-person and online courses, and 40 hours per week for the full-time, in-person bootcamp. 

MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society

The Data Science and Big Data Analytics: Making Data-Driven Decisions course was created by the MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS). It’s a seven-week course that helps you leverage data analytics skills in the workplace, and it’s designed for data science professionals, not beginners. It’s an affordable class that you can complete online, but it’s not self-paced. Each course takes place over seven weeks, and you will need to hit deadlines for each module. You can download a sample case study to give you an idea of what will be covered in the class so you can make sure it’s the right fit before you apply.

Springboard

Springboard offers a free online curriculum for data analysis consisting of online lectures, homework assignments, quizzes and projects for a total of 350-400 hours of work. There’s also a capstone project you will complete at the end that can double as a portfolio to demonstrate your skills to potential employers. Topics cover general programming practices, Python, SQL, Unix, Git, R, statistical techniques, machine learning, presenting findings and elective topics such as visualization, social network analysis and big data. You can pick and choose from electives and foundational course to build the skills you need for a career in data analysis.

Udemy

Udemy offers Complete Data Analysis Course for Beginners, a fundamentals course that covers everything from data analysis basics to important tools such as Excel, SQL and Tableau. Students get experience with cleaning, analyzing and visualizing data. The course is recommended for beginners — but you should be familiar with Microsoft Excel. If you already understand the fundamentals of data analysis, you can choose from other courses that focus on specific skills such as Business Data Analysis, SQL, Python and Microsoft Excel.