Quote: (05-07-2014 04:42 PM)TopPanda Wrote:SQL is in general for heavy duty data analysis. Unless you want to specialize in Business intelligence or data analysis, it really isn't necessary for most people. Even for larger data sets, there are some pretty decent BI tools that make it easy for people who are used to excel to get their data - Tableau for instance.
You can carve out a good niche for yourself being the "reports guy" - especially if you learn some VBA.
But really you should man up and learn Access and then onto SQL Server or Oracle (but SQL Server is the database to know). IT is booming right now and YOU need a slice of the pie.
That said, I do agree with you if you want to always have a job, learning SQL is a major asset. As for VBA, i havent really needed to use it. Im usually using pivot tables, which may or may not be linked to Access databases, and on very rare occasions using a recorded macro in Excel. Otherwise for anything that requires a large amount of data processing or automation, id switch to R/SAS/python with a large amount of SQL within those programs.