Top Data Analysis Projects to Sharpen Your Skills and Build Your Data Analysis Portfolio

Having an impressive portfolio of industry-relevant analytics projects is the best way to demonstrate that you’re capable of tackling real-world data analysis problems. Every employer wants to hire experienced analysts who have a firm grasp of concepts like data scraping, statistical programming, and Tableau analysis, even for entry-level data analytics job roles.

If you want to become a data analyst, you should create a portfolio to show future employers what you can do. You can create projects for beginners, intermediate projects, or projects that use advanced skills. Read below to see the best data analysis project ideas in 2021.

5 Skills That Data Analysis Projects Can Help You Practice

There are numerous reasons why having a data analysis portfolio is a good idea. One obvious benefit is that it will help you transition from a beginner into a data expert. You’ll work on projects that will allow you to apply your theoretical knowledge in practical ways. Below are some of the analytics skills required for a successful career in data analytics.

• Statistical Programming. Large datasets cannot be compiled and analyzed without the use of statistical programming. This skill is required at all levels of data analytics expertise. You should be able to analyze and interpret statistical data using Python and R programming languages.
• Data Visualization. Findings from analytical research can be conveyed through graphical representations to facilitate easy understanding and application. This advanced analytics skill enables you to efficiently represent complex datasets and metrics using graphs, charts, and other visual aids. 
• AI and Machine Learning. Machine learning ensures the automation of datasets processing using data structures and algorithms without the active intervention of humans. Most data analytics project ideas combine major aspects of machine learning in data analysis, especially predictive modeling and deep learning. 
• Data Cleaning. This routine skill is an essential requirement for entry-level data analytics roles. Participating in data cleaning projects will help you learn how to properly identify, correct, or eliminate compromised data within datasets. Proficiency in this task can serve as both a technical and soft skill. 
• Research. Every data analysis project requires preliminary research. You have to understand the techniques and methods of gathering information from scratch before analyzing and interpreting them. Engaging in analytics projects will help you easily identify the relevant sources of data, allowing you to build your expertise.

Best Data Analysis Project Ideas for Beginners 

Coming up with interesting and useful project ideas as a beginner should not be a difficult task. There are several simple projects you can get familiar with in this technical field. Our list contains data analytics project ideas you can start working on even as a college student or career switcher with no field experience.

Consumer Sentiment Analysis

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Data cleaning, data visualization, research

Knowing how to interpret data to facilitate decision-making is an essential attribute for every data analyst, and a sentiment analysis project will enable you to hone this skill. You will use natural language processing (NLP) to conduct text analysis on web data such as public reviews and social media engagements.

You will classify the data based on emotions or opinions such as positive, negative, and neutral. The results of content analysis are vital in providing information about the public image or product performance to organizations. You can try extracting datasets from free web sources like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Yelp to get started. 

SEO Data Extraction

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, data cleaning, research

SEO data scraping is an ideal project for you as a beginner. You can learn how to constructively conduct competitive analysis and gain market intelligence by sending a query. You will comb through the HTML to find vital data like the highest organic search results to use as a guide in generating traffic and social engagements on a website. 

Knowledge of data scraping is a major requirement for entry-level analytics roles. Data scraping projects will expose you to programming languages such as Python, Ruby, C/C++, and PHP. If you don’t know how to code, web scraping tools and plugins such as Parsehub, ScrapingBot, Octoparse, and import.io can simplify the process. 

Website Data Cleaning 

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Data cleaning, research

Data cleaning involves rectifying or eliminating incorrect, duplicate, incomplete, and compromised data from within a dataset and validating the authenticity of the data. Data cleaning is especially important when extracting data from multiple web sources for computational analysis to reduce irregularities in the results.

For this project, you can choose a website and practice data cleaning. This can be one from the Internet or your own site. This skill is ideal for beginners because it helps them understand the processes involved in preserving data quality. Employers are more likely to notice you if you have technical proficiency in this skill. 

Pokemon Exploratory Data Analysis 

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, AI and machine learning, data visualization

As the name implies, a Pokemon report exploratory data analysis enables you to explore important aspects of the Pokemon video game dataset to gain informative insights on the data variations of the game stats. Exploratory data analysis is used to determine the validity of datasets before it is used in machine learning algorithms.

You can use different exploratory methods to achieve this. Some of these methods include univariate, bivariate, and multivariate visualization. For this project, a bivariate visualization should be used to measure the effort-value yield components of the game. This data analysis project will help you improve your ability to detect errors.

Campaign Polling Tableau Analysis

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Data visualization, data cleaning, research

Visual analytics is an excellent way of communicating complex statistical data. Data analysts must be skilled in this function because effective communication is a key requirement for this position. Tableau is a business intelligence tool that is used to visualize statistical data. Public datasets from Tableau can help you improve your knowledge. 

Campaign polling Tableau analysis projects are an excellent starting point for beginners, particularly those interested in working in the public sector. This project will teach you how to communicate actionable insights to a diverse set of stakeholders to facilitate real-time decision-making. 

Best Intermediate Data Analysis Project Ideas 

With intermediate data analysis projects, you’ll extend your knowledge beyond analyzing existing data to managing data flow and creation by applying data science and machine learning techniques in your analysis. You’ll go from being a data analyst or scientist to a developer. You’ll learn how to begin manipulating data sets using data structures and algorithms. 

Some of the projects you should work on include:

Chatbot

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: AI and machine learning, statistical programming

Building a chatbot is a great idea for a data analytics project. It demonstrates your versatile skills by showing you can incorporate knowledge from other fields into your work. A chatbot is a piece of artificial intelligence software that uses natural language processing to stimulate and respond to routine questions to optimize the user experience on websites.

A chatbot project would require you to program the chatbot software using deep learning techniques, then classify the relevant dataset based on message patterns. You’ll use the neural network to train it to imitate the human brain processing in recognizing, generating, and responding to messages from a list of possible responses in real time. 

Grammar Error Correction 

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: AI and machine learning, research

Learning how to detect grammar errors in a dataset is an invaluable skill, especially for large writing projects. There are several types of error detection projects you can work on using machine learning, NLP, and programming, but developing an accurate grammar detection tool is a worthwhile challenge.

To detect data, you must first create a model that can detect anomalies in writing when they occur. The model is then used to alert and correct errors, ensuring the data’s reliability. You could start by practicing with error source codes to hone your individual skills in this area of analytics. A source code will allow you to achieve guided training on the subject. 

Accident Event Data Analysis

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, data cleaning

Event analysis is used to establish the interactive relationship between two variables, which is the extent that an independent variable affects a dependent variable over time. This analysis employs regression techniques to create causal and predictive models for the events to gain insights into future occurrences and improve decision-making. 

An accident event analysis project enables the analyst to improve their programming and data modeling skills by analyzing accident occurrences over time. To get started, you should be able to code in Strata. This project will facilitate the process of linear regression and time series analysis so you can easily generate variables from datasets. 

Product Preference Analysis

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, data cleaning, research

Conducting a data mining project involving preference analysis is ideal for building your portfolio, especially if you want to become a business analyst. A product preference analysis involves gathering and processing data on customer experience using a particular product. The results of this research are invaluable assets to companies. 

To complete this project, you must understand how to mine useful information from complex datasets by organizing them in a schema framework so that you can understand the structure of the dataset. You’d need to know how to use entity relationship modeling to establish relationships between products and consumers. 

Fraud Detection Model

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, AI and machine learning

With a fraud detection model, you can contribute your quota to preventing Internet fraud. This project idea is ideal for data analysts and developers who want to polish their fraud analysis skills. This project aims to create a model that can predict and detect fraudulent accounts based on their account registration details.

To carry out this project, you need to first acquire a public dataset of account registrations. You need to gain access to a fraud detector to base your model on. Before you begin building your model with the dataset you obtained, you must first understand the fraud detector component you intend to use.

Best Advanced Data Analysis Project Ideas

The advanced data analytics and science projects ideas will enable you to learn machine learning and regression analysis. You’ll learn how to use algorithms and data structures to predict events and recommend actions. Participating in advanced analytics project ideas will enable you to gain access to higher-level analytics job roles.

Stock Market Crash Prediction

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: AI and machine learning, statistical programming, data cleaning, research

The stock market crash prediction project prepares you for financial analytics job roles. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for financial analysts is $83,660, which is higher than average. With this project, you’ll learn how to organize data structures and develop algorithms that predict the occurrence of stock market crashes.

A project of this magnitude will go through several phases. First, you’ll conduct data exploration to gather relevant datasets from the financial industry, then exploratory analysis to validate the authenticity of this data before you begin mining the data for useful insights and knowledge patterns. Once this has been achieved, you can move on to the machine learning stage. 

Movie Recommendations System

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: AI and machine learning, statistical programming

You can program a system to suggest movies on behalf of users by collecting personal data on individuals’ movie streaming habits. You will train the system to recognize and process this information by imitating a similar thought pattern. This project requires you to create a system that recommends movies and television shows to a user based on their watch history.

This type of recommendation system is called the collaborative filtering system since it is based on the patterns of other viewers as well as the viewer you want to recommend to. To proceed, you would need to generate data from a movie dataset into your movie project library, then analyze movie content to devise the data pattern before programming it using the R language. 

Rainfall Precipitation Forecast 

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Data cleaning, research, statistical programming

A rainfall precipitation forecast provides data on the likelihood of precipitation such as snow, sleet, hail, and ice pellets occurring in the future. This project relies on the exploration of weather data to establish a pattern. Before using regression analysis to determine the likelihood of occurrence, you must conduct a time series analysis to obtain a trend report.

To carry out this project, you’d need to source climate data for the region you’re interested in covering. Then, import it and establish a visual time-series data of your dataset. This should serve as the foundation of your forecast. Divide time series data into data models and run regression analysis tests to determine their likelihood of occurrence. 

Customer Segmentation

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Statistical programming, research, data visualization

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing a company’s customer base into smaller clusters based on unique characteristics in order to gain useful insights into their needs. Companies can devise profitable strategies for each segment based on the findings of this project. This analytics project is an excellent way to improve your business intelligence abilities.

To carry out this project, you need to first conduct a behavioral analysis on each customer segment to devise purchase habits before implementing programming. You must be familiar with Python programming, which will allow you to perform data modeling on the clusters in order to easily analyze them.

Portfolio Recommendation System

• Data Analysis Skills Practiced: Machine learning, statistical programming

Creating a system that can recommend which stocks to invest in can be difficult, but it is not impossible. Due to the irregularities in stock price performance, you must constantly update this data so that the user can continue to make informed decisions. It starts with you importing the different stock datasets from open sources through web scraping. 

You can compare your stock dataset with stock public reviews to establish a basis for recommendation. Then, conduct an exploratory analysis of your collected data to determine the validity of these datasets. You can follow this stock analysis project tutorial from AndrewD5, Divya Chandana, and Jasneek Chugh to make the process easier.

Data Analysis Starter Project Templates

Data analysis starter project templates are an excellent guide for beginners. With these templates, you have a project structure for your analytics project. Some of these templates allow you to implement packages, making it easier for you to stay on track with your analysis. 

• Data Analysis Project Template. This template will provide you with a standard data analysis project guide to help you start building your portfolio.
• Data Analysis Project for R Packages Template. This is a generic template for projects that require R package structures.
• Tableau Dashboard Starters. This is a starter template for Tableau visualization projects.
• Alteryx Predictive Data Analysis Starter Kit. This is a starter template for predictive analysis that can forecast customer spending and optimize pricing.
• Data Analysis Pipeline Templates. This data analytics project template accommodates Python packages.

Next Steps: Start Organizing Your Data Analysis Portfolio

There are several factors to consider when working on your data analysis portfolio. Remember, the goal is to create an impressive portfolio that highlights your skillset and recommends you for high-paying jobs. Your data analytics project plan should contain these tips to keep you on track in achieving your goals.

Take Advantage of Resources

Regardless of your skill level, utilizing data analytics resources in achieving your project goals is always a good idea. Templates, tutorials, forums, and open source datasets are available to help you simplify and accelerate your project journey. Compare your project ideas to what has previously been done to help you fix mistakes before they happen.

Choose an Industry

Finding and expanding your niche will help you get more specialized and high-paying jobs. Make your projects relevant to the industry you want to enter. You can’t apply for a financial analytics job with a portfolio full of projects about mechanistic analysis for engineering. Remember that your portfolio demonstrates your level of specialization.

Use Social Media

In today’s world, using social media to build your professional image is critical to your success. This method makes it easier for potential employers to assess your professional development. You don’t need to persuade them that you’re good enough, and they’ll judge your worth based on your work and approach you accordingly.

Data Analysis Projects FAQ