Career change
Your next career doesn't have to be a complete reset.
Most changes are adjacent moves that reuse the majority of what you already have. These pathways show what tends to carry over, and what usually needs building.
Pathway explorer
Pick a starting point
Select the role closest to where you are now. These are illustrative routes, not the only order these moves can happen in.
- Where you areBusiness Operations
- Adjacent moveBusiness Analyst
- Further directionData Analyst
Operational work where you already know how the process runs and where it breaks.
Transferable skills
- Process knowledge that takes outsiders months to acquire
- Spreadsheet fluency
- Stakeholder relationships across departments
- Understanding what the numbers mean in context
Skills that may need developing
- SQL and data modelling
- Requirements writing that a delivery team can build from
- Visual communication of findings
Example learning activities
- Rebuild one manual report as a query rather than a copy-paste
- Document a current process end to end, then propose a change
- Complete a structured SQL course and apply it to real internal data
Worth considering
Moving toward analysis usually means giving up some operational ownership. Clarify early whether the new role is additional to your current one or instead of it.
Read about Data and Analytics →Illustrative career pathways. Not guaranteed progression routes, and not the only order these moves can happen in.
What tends to help
Four things worth knowing
- 01
Adjacent beats distant
A move that reuses most of what you already have is faster, better paid on arrival, and easier to argue for in an interview.
- 02
Name the skill, not the job
"Reconciled month-end for twelve cost centres" becomes "data validation at scale" once you describe the capability rather than the task.
- 03
One step at a time
Two adjacent moves will usually get you further than one leap, because each one adds evidence the next employer can check.
- 04
Overlap before you exit
Building evidence inside your current role is the lowest-risk way to make a change credible before you need it to be.