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Many people want to work in AI; fewer people know how to actually get there.

AI feels like a field for people who already have a machine learning PhD, or who spent the last five years writing Python at a tech giant. For most career changers, that’s not where they’re starting from and it’s putting a lot of people off before they’ve even looked into it.

But that’s not really how most people are getting into AI roles right now, and it’s certainly not how they’re getting into them in Ireland. A far more common route is the one that goes through data first.

AI needs data before it needs anything else

Every AI system, from a recommendation engine to an internal chatbot, is only as good as the data feeding it. Someone has to gather that data, clean it, structure it and make sense of what it’s actually saying before any AI model can do anything useful with it. That’s the job of a data analyst — and it’s exactly why the role sits so close to AI work on the org chart.

Irish companies have noticed this. Ibec’s 2025 Skills Survey found that 82% of Irish firms are reporting significant skills gaps that are actively undermining productivity and competitiveness, with digital and AI skills singled out as a growing pressure point. Separately, the AI Economy Ireland 2026 report from Trinity College Dublin and Microsoft Ireland found that AI adoption is now near-universal among Irish organisations, with 92% using or planning to use AI — but only 10% describe their deployment as advanced. That gap between adoption and capability is where analysts come in: businesses need people who can work with the data behind these AI tools, not just switch the tools on.

The numbers back this up

Data roles are one of the few corners of the Irish tech job market still growing quickly, and it’s reflected in the pay. Morgan McKinley’s 2025 Salary Guide placed typical Data Analyst starting salaries in Ireland between €35,000 and €45,000, rising to a €45,000–€65,000 range as analysts gain experience. Robert Walters’ salary survey found a similar pattern, with entry-level analysts earning €30,000–€40,000 and experienced analysts reaching up to €70,000. The Archer BI & Data Analytics Employment Guide for 2025 described data roles as among the most actively recruited technical positions in Ireland, reporting double-digit growth in analytics hiring year-on-year, and Irish job boards including IrishJobs.ie, Indeed and LinkedIn have consistently listed hundreds of open data-related roles nationally — many of them junior titles like Data Analyst, BI Analyst and Reporting Analyst, not senior positions requiring years of experience.

At the same time, Ibec has warned that Ireland risks failing to capitalise on what it describes as a multi-billion euro AI opportunity unless the workforce is reskilled faster. For someone starting from zero, that gap between demand and supply is an opportunity: a genuine entry point into a growth field, rather than a queue behind thousands of computer science graduates.

Where a data analyst role actually leads

This is the part that often gets missed. A junior data analyst position isn’t a dead end — it’s a launchpad. Analysts who build real experience with SQL, Python and reporting tools are the ones best placed to move into data science, analytics engineering, BI leadership or AI-adjacent product roles a few years down the line. You can’t skip the data groundwork and land straight in an AI role; you build toward it, and the salary progression reflects that — Robert Walters’ figures show experienced analysts in Ireland earning close to double what they started on.

Building that foundation

This is exactly the thinking behind Business Technology Academy’s Data Analytics course. It’s built for complete beginners and career changers, covering SQL, Power BI and Python from the ground up, alongside a look at how AI is already being used in analytics workplaces today. By the end, you’ll have built real projects for your portfolio and be ready to apply for junior analyst roles — the same roles that, for a lot of people currently working in AI, were their first step too.

If a career in AI feels out of reach right now, data analytics is worth a much closer look. It’s not a detour from AI — for most people in Ireland right now, it’s the way in.