Analyze data to identify trends or relationships among variables
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 19 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Analyzing Data or Information (4.A.2.a.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 19 occupations that perform it.
- Conduct logical analyses of business, scientific, engineering, and other technical problems, formulating mathematical models of problems for solution by computers.
- Identify and evaluate industry trends in database systems to serve as a source of information and advice for upper management.
- Perform system analysis, data analysis or programming, using a variety of computer languages and procedures.
- Conduct historical analyses of test results.
- Perform integrated or computerized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyses to address scientific problems.
- Prepare project status reports by collecting, analyzing, and summarizing information and trends.
- Construct probability tables for events such as fires, natural disasters, and unemployment, based on analysis of statistical data and other pertinent information.
- Perform computations and apply methods of numerical analysis to data.
- Break systems into their components, assign numerical values to each component, and examine the mathematical relationships between them.
- Identify relationships and trends in data, as well as any factors that could affect the results of research.
- Prepare statistical data for inclusion in reports to data monitoring committees, federal regulatory agencies, managers, or clients.
- Identify relationships and trends or any factors that could affect the results of research.
- Program and use computers to store, process, and analyze data.
- Analyze information from traffic counting programs.
- Reconstruct crime scenes to determine relationships among pieces of evidence.
- Analyze incident data to identify trends in injuries, illnesses, accidents, or other hazards.
- Analyze prescribing trends to monitor patient compliance and to prevent excessive usage or harmful interactions.
- Identify groups at risk for specific preventable diseases or injuries.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
Step-by-step workflows that name this activity, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Others for analysis and evaluation work
Who does this work
19 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Actuaries
- Biologists
- Biostatisticians
- Computer and Information Research Scientists
- Data Scientists
- Data Warehousing Specialists
- Database Administrators
- Database Architects
- Forensic Science Technicians
- Geographic Information Systems Technologists and Technicians
- Information Technology Project Managers
- Mathematicians
- Occupational Health and Safety Specialists
- Operations Research Analysts
- Pharmacists
- Preventive Medicine Physicians
- Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
- Statisticians
- Transportation Planners
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Analyze scientific or applied data using mathematical principles”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Apply mathematical principles or statistical approaches to solve problems in scientific or applied fields | 9 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.