The Real Data Analytics Skills Employers Want in 2026 and What They Pay

About this episode

Nisar Ahmed and Dustin Schimek discuss the evolving data analytics skills employers will seek in 2026 and the associated compensation trends.

In this episode of The Data Nerd Podcast, host Nisar Ahmed welcomes back analytics leader and data community builder Dustin Schimek for a timely conversation on the real data analytics skills employers want in 2026 — and what they pay for them. Today's guest is Dustin Schimek, creator of the Data Jobs Report and the weekly Data Jobs Rundown, where he analyzes real job postings year over year to uncover hiring trends across data and analytics roles. With experience leading analytics teams and enabling data practitioners, Dustin brings a data-driven lens to understanding how analytics careers are evolving and what professionals should be paying attention to next. At its core, this episode is about cutting through the noise. Rather than relying on opinions or hype, the conversation is grounded in actual hiring data and long-term trends. Together, Nisar and Dustin explore how expectations for data analysts are changing, how skills and experience shape career growth, and why compensation looks the way it does across different stages of an analytics career. 🎧 Tune in to learn: The top data analytics skills employers are hiring for How Tableau and Power BI stack up in today's market…

People in this episode

Host: Nisar Ahmed

Guest: Dustin Schimek

Topics covered

• data analytics skills
• employer expectations
• compensation trends
• career growth
• data storytelling
• cloud skills

Keywords

• data analytics
• employer expectations
• career growth
• compensation
• cloud skills
• data storytelling
• Tableau
• Power BI

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Data Jobs Report, Data Jobs Rundown

Products: Tableau, Power BI

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