picked.ai/hire/data-analyst
Hire a data analyst
How to hire a
data analyst.
Salary bands, time-to-fill, what good actually looks like, and the assessment we put every candidate through. Built on nine years of validated psychometric data from Neuroworx.
Post this role
~30 seconds
Title, level, three must-haves. We syndicate, screen, score, and shortlist. First 50 candidates free.
Post this role for free →
£77,500
Median salary · United Kingdom
£65-£90k senior range
42d
Typical time-to-fill
down to 3.1d with Picked
312
Applicants per role
Series A · public posting
9 / 312
Make it to interview
industry · pre-AI screening
Salary bands
What it costs to hire one.
2026 H1 · base + variable
LevelUSUKEURemote
IC1 / Junior$56-$77k£35-£48k€37-€51k$46-$63k
IC2 / Analyst$77-$109k£48-£68k€51-€73k$63-$90k
IC3 / Senior analyst$104-$144k£65-£90k€70-€96k$86-$119k
IC4 / Staff analyst$136-$184k£85-£115k€91-€123k$112-$152k
IC5 / Principal analyst$173-$237k£108-£148k€116-€158k$143-$195k
Source · 2,847 anonymised offers placed via Picked Q4 2025 to Q1 2026. Updated monthly.
What good looks like
Past credentials. Present signals.
01
Question-shaping
Turns a vague stakeholder ask into the question the data can actually answer. Sends back a better question before opening the laptop.
02
Numerical judgement
Spots when a number is obviously wrong before they spot the bug. Holds rough magnitudes in their head.
03
Comms with non-analysts
Writes a paragraph the CFO will read. Picks the one chart that earns its place.
04
Honesty about uncertainty
Names confidence intervals out loud. Tells the CEO when the sample is too small.
05
Curiosity
Has a side query running in the background. Has noticed something nobody asked them to look at.
Nine years of Neuroworx outcome data on 14,000 data analyst hires says: the candidates rated high on question-shaping + comms with non-analysts outperform high-prestige-CV candidates by a wide margin in the first twelve months.
Read the paper →
What Picked puts every candidate through
Four stages. Each one written down.
From the Neuroworx item bank · 1,247 items live
01
Triage
CV + cover screened against must-haves. Title, level, language, region, three skills you set. Hard filters first. The model spends no time on people you would not even read.
~12 seconds · $0.12
02
Conversational screen
A 12-minute voice or chat conversation against six structured probes: motivation, scope of last role, the thing they are proudest of, biggest production mistake, what they would build with a free month, why this role.
~12 min · $0.31
03
Role-fit assessment
A scoped task drawn from the bank. Submit a short writeup. Scored against a published rubric on judgement, craft, and pragmatism.
30-60 min · $0.28
04
AI first-round interview
A 20-minute voice interview against six items drawn from the IC3 item bank. Includes behavioural ("tell me about a time"), technical or scenario ("walk me through how you would approach"), and an ownership probe.
~20 min · $0.24
The 1,247 items for data analyst are split across 42 sub-rubrics. Every item has been calibrated against twelve-month performance outcomes from 14,083 prior hires.
See sample items ↗
Sample interview questions
A few from the item bank.
01
Walk me through the last analysis you ran end-to-end. Question to recommendation.
Listen for: A specific stakeholder, a specific question, the moment the data refused to answer cleanly and what they did about it.
02
Tell me about a question a stakeholder asked you that you reshaped before answering.
Listen for: A real ask, a clean reframe, the conversation where they pushed back. They named what the stakeholder actually needed.
03
Describe a time you had to tell a leader "the data does not say that".
Listen for: A specific moment. The leader, the claim, what they said instead. How the leader took it.
04
What is a metric your last team relied on that you think was wrong, and why?
Listen for: A specific metric. A clear reason. Whether they tried to change it and what happened.
05
Pick an SQL query in your last codebase you would rewrite. Why?
Listen for: A real query. The actual smell (cartesian join, hidden filter, untrusted source). What they would do instead.
See all 30 questions →
Job description template
Copy. Paste. Replace the bracketed bits.
data-analyst.md
228 words · 3 min read
# [Senior/Mid/Junior] data analyst · [city] or hybrid

We are hiring our [Nth] data analyst. You will be the person our [CMO/CFO/COO] calls before deciding. The team is [N] analysts and [N] analytics engineers. We run on [warehouse and modelling stack]. [Where analyses get read].

## You will be good here if

- You can take a vague stakeholder ask and send back a sharper question before opening the laptop.
- You have told a leader "the data does not say that" and made the conversation better.
- [The third trait you actually care about].

## What you will not get

A dashboard factory. We retire dashboards that nobody opens. We will ask you to delete more than you build in the first quarter.

## Compensation

[Currency][low] to [high] base. [low] to [high] percent equity. We post the band because we mean it.

## How we hire

30-second post, screen + assessment via Picked, 20-min interview via Picked, one on-site half-day with the team plus a live analysis walk-through. We aim to give a yes or no in 7 days.

## What is the rubric

Question-shaping, numerical judgement, comms with non-analysts, honesty about uncertainty, curiosity. Not the count of dashboards on your last CV.

That is the JD. Apply via [link] or just send a paragraph about the last dashboard you killed and why.

[Your name], [your title]
Full JD template page →
Hire a data analyst.
By Friday.
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Hire data analysts · Picked.ai