Skills
Statistician Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in statisticians, and how to build and show them.
What skills do statisticians need?
Statisticians need technical skills such as statistical methods, experimental design, and r and sas, plus people skills like communication and skepticism. They also use tools such as R and SAS.
Technical (hard) skills
- Statistical methods
- Experimental design
- R and SAS
- Modeling
- Data cleaning
- Report writing
People (soft) skills
- Communication
- Skepticism
- Attention to detail
- Collaboration
Tools, equipment and technology
- R
- SAS
- Python
- SQL
- Stata
- Tableau
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how statisticians put their skills to work:
- How to calculate sample size for a study
- How to write a statistical analysis plan
- How to explain a p-value correctly
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Statistical methods” and “Experimental design.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “communication,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as PStat near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our statistician glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Statistician training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.