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Skills that decide which jobs you get

• Statistics and a programming language

  R, Stata or Python. Analysts who can run the numbers themselves are a different tier from analysts who summarize other people's.

• Budget analysis

  Reading and building a public budget is a specific, teachable and very employable skill.

• One subject area you know deeply

  Housing, health, criminal justice, energy, transport. Generalists get stuck.

• Plain writing

  The memo has to land with someone who has four minutes. This is trainable and rare.

• Geographic information systems

  Mapping data turns a spreadsheet into an argument a council member can see.