From oil engineer to UK data analyst in six months: what actually worked

Before data, I was an Asset Production Engineer at NNPC, working across oil production facilities in Nigeria. It was demanding, technical work, and I was good at it.

Then I relocated to the UK to join my wife. Overnight, the experience I'd built didn't open the doors I'd hoped it would. Like many people who move countries, I had to start again.

Starting from the bottom

My first jobs in the UK had nothing to do with engineering. I spent a week working in a fish processing factory. After that, I spent five months installing solar panels.

I'm not embarrassed by those jobs. They paid the bills, and they taught me something important: nobody was going to hand me my next career. I'd have to build it.

So in the evenings, I started teaching myself data skills.

Why data?

Looking back, the move made sense. As an engineer, I'd always worked with numbers: production figures, performance trends, operational reports. What I hadn't had were the modern tools to turn that data into clear answers quickly.

Data analytics drew on everything I already knew, the problem-solving, the attention to detail and the business sense, and added a skill set UK employers were actively hiring for.

The three tools I focused on

I didn't try to learn everything. I focused on the three tools that kept appearing in UK data analyst job adverts:

1. Excel: still everywhere in business, and the foundation for everything else.
2. SQL: the language for getting data out of databases, which almost every analyst role asks for.
3. Power BI: the tool for turning data into reports and dashboards that people actually use.

Within six months of arriving in the UK, I landed my first role as a Data Analyst.

What actually worked

These are the lessons I'd pass on to anyone making the same switch.

Focus beats breadth

It's tempting to collect courses in Python, R, Tableau, machine learning and more. Employers hiring junior analysts mostly want to see that you can get data, clean it, analyse it and present it clearly. Excel, SQL and Power BI cover that. Go deep on those first.

Your past experience counts more than you think

Career-switchers often believe they're starting from zero. You aren't. Whatever you did before taught you how a business works, how to solve problems and how to deal with people. Frame your previous career as domain knowledge, because that's exactly what it is.

Learn by building, not just watching

Tutorials feel productive, but real learning happens when you take a messy dataset and try to answer a real question with it. Projects also give you something concrete to talk about in interviews.

Consistency beats intensity

Fitting study around full-time work is hard. Steady, regular practice, even an hour in the evening, adds up far faster than occasional marathon sessions.

Show your work

Employers can't see your skills unless you show them. A small portfolio of dashboards and analyses, with a short explanation of the business question behind each one, makes a real difference.

Where it led

Today I'm a Senior Data Analyst, a Microsoft Certified Professional and a member of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. I also founded Intelligence With Data, where we help businesses automate their reporting and help people build the same skills I had to piece together on my own.

If you're where I was

If you're working a job that doesn't use your abilities, studying in the evenings and wondering whether it's possible: it is. The path isn't always quick or comfortable, but it's real.

That's why I run a free live Power BI and SQL class every Friday. It's the practical, hands-on session I wish I'd had when I started.