What I’d do if I was starting out as an analyst right now

Hi everyone, I hope the weekend has been a good one. If you are a football fan, we've seen the start of the new Premier League season which is always exciting.

Anyway, I had a conversation this week with someone on the back of my last (I think it was my last) weekly email about the saturation of masters degrees and I've spoken before about how the job market currently looks (especially in sports analysis).

If you missed that email, you can check it out HERE.

Anyway, the conversation I had was around the current crop of young analysts and those currently at university (maybe a lot of you reading this will fall into that category). The way the analyst role has changed over the years, and will continue to do so, means you have to have different skills than what you needed 5-10 years ago.

Analysts used to have to film and code, but nowadays this is done for you, especially the higher up you go. To me, a modern-day analyst is just as much a coach as they are an 'analyst'. If you have taken any notice of job descriptions from the top Premier League teams, you will see they do actually ask for coaching qualifications.

So, this leads to what I would if I was starting out again and wanted to pursue being an analyst. It seems a degree is pretty much mandatory at this point and so you would pretty much have to start there. Then, whilst at university I would be looking to try and volunteer at a club whilst also creating my own content on the side and begin sharing it to grow my network and become noticed.

Then, here comes the coaching...

I would look to do my coaching qualifications and try to also gain coaching experience (volunteering, shadowing or simply observing) just as much as analysis experience. I would probably favour this over doing an analysis masters. If you can do both, great. I think if I had to choose between a masters in analysis or a B licence, then I think I would pick the coaching.

Curious to hear people's opinions on this though. Do you agree?

I think I may do some more research and some polls on this and eventually do a video on the findings. Seems an interesting one.

For those that want to hear more from the coaching side, the video below is a really good one. It is with Dougie Anderson who is part of the coach education team at the Scottish FA. We speak actually speak about the need for analysts to be qualified coaches so it's worth checking out.

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