| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Sales and Business Development |
| Level | Mid level |
| Reports to | Sales Operations Manager |
| Direct reports | None |
| Experience | 2 to 5 years in data analysis or sales operations |
Sales Analyst job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Sales Analyst
Department: Sales and Business Development
Reports to: Sales Operations Manager
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Sales Analyst turns sales data into insight, building reports and dashboards and helping leaders understand performance, trends and opportunities. They gather and clean data, analyse targets versus actuals, support forecasting and answer the business questions sales leaders ask. A good sales analyst produces accurate, timely analysis and turns numbers into clear recommendations. The role sits in sales operations or the commercial team, reports to a sales operations or sales manager, and does not carry a selling quota.
Key responsibilities
- Gather, clean and combine sales data from the CRM, ERP and other systems.
- Build and maintain sales reports and dashboards for leaders and managers.
- Analyse target versus actual performance by region, product and team.
- Support the forecasting process with data and trend analysis.
- Analyse pipeline, conversion, pricing and customer trends for insight.
- Answer ad hoc data questions from sales leaders quickly and accurately.
- Track incentive attainment and support the payout calculations each period.
- Highlight risks, opportunities and anomalies in the numbers to leaders.
- Improve data quality and standard metric definitions across all reports.
- Present findings and recommendations clearly to the reporting manager.
Requirements
- Graduate in commerce, business, statistics or IT
- Strong Excel and analytical skills
- Knowledge of a business intelligence tool is an advantage
- 2 to 5 years in data analysis or sales operations
KRAs and KPIs for a Sales Analyst
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Report accuracy | Reports and dashboards accurate with no data errors found |
| Timeliness | Standard reports delivered on schedule every period |
| Insight | Actionable insights delivered from analysis each month |
| Forecast support | Forecast inputs and analysis delivered on time and reliable |
| Responsiveness | Ad hoc data requests answered within the agreed time |
| Data quality | Data quality issues found and fixed each quarter |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Advanced Excel, Power BI or Tableau, CRM platform, SQL, ERP reports.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Senior Sales Analyst, Sales Operations Manager, Business Analyst
Interview questions for a Sales Analyst
- How do you check that a sales report is accurate before sharing it?
- How would you analyse why a region is missing its target?
- What sales metrics would you put on a leadership dashboard?
- How do you handle messy data from different systems?
- How do you turn a data finding into a clear recommendation?
- Tell me about an analysis that changed a decision.
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What does a sales analyst do?
A sales analyst turns sales data into insight. They gather and clean data, build reports and dashboards, analyse target versus actual performance, and support forecasting. They answer the data questions sales leaders ask, track incentive attainment, highlight risks and opportunities, and improve data quality. Their job is accurate, timely analysis that helps the business make better decisions.
What skills does a sales analyst need?
A sales analyst needs strong data analysis and advanced Excel, comfort with a business intelligence tool such as Power BI or Tableau, and often basic SQL. Understanding sales metrics like pipeline, conversion and forecast is important. Attention to detail keeps reports accurate, and clear communication turns numbers into recommendations that leaders can act on.
Is a sales analyst a sales job?
Not in the selling sense. A sales analyst supports the sales team with data and analysis rather than carrying a revenue quota. It sits in sales operations or the commercial team. It suits people who enjoy numbers and problem solving more than field selling, and it can lead to sales operations, analytics or business analyst roles.