A curated collection of public career frameworks, role definitions, competence models and learning paths for data teams — data engineers, analysts, analytics engineers, scientists, ML/MLOps engineers, architects, stewards and data leaders.
Engineering has several aggregators of public career frameworks. Data had none — the material exists, scattered across company handbooks, government frameworks, EU standards, certification blueprints and community curricula. This collection assembles it, with two things most link lists don't have: a depth verdict per source (full responsibility descriptions vs. link list) and license/reuse terms, so you know what you can actually do with each one.
Every link was fetched and verified in July 2026. Sources checked and not included are listed at the bottom with reasons — so you know what's not here because it doesn't exist, rather than because nobody looked.
Navigate by what you're trying to do: Write job descriptions · Build a progression ladder · Define competencies · Design team structure · Train into a role · National frameworks by country · Who covers which role · The gaps · Checked & excluded
Tags: industry · org/team size where meaningful · roles covered · depth · license.
Full role descriptions with responsibilities you can adapt into a req.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| GitLab — Enterprise Data job families | Full per-level job descriptions (junior→principal) for data engineer, data analyst, analytics engineer, data architect, data science, data manager | tech ~2000 emp, mature data function DE DA AE DS Arch Mgr deep · CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| ESCO — EU occupation profiles | EU-official occupation profiles with 50+ essential skills each: data scientist (linked), data engineer, data analyst, chief data officer, data quality specialist, database administrator/developer, data warehouse designer — 28 languages | EU standard DE DA DS CDO DQ DBA deep · free, attribution required |
| O*NET — Data Scientists 15-2051.00 | US-official occupation profile: tasks, skills, technology lists (+ BI analysts 15-2051.01, database architects 15-1243.00, DBAs 15-1242.00) | US standard DS BI DBA Arch deep · CC BY 4.0 |
The single deepest source in this collection — the UK Government's DDaT capability framework — lives in the country section below, alongside Estonia's four national profiles and the other national frameworks.
Level-by-level expectations for growing people.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Monzo — Data Discipline Progression Framework v2.0 | 42-page, ten-level framework for the data discipline, IC + manager pathways (GitHub mirror) | fintech data discipline ~100+ DA DS deep |
| Dropbox — Engineering Career Framework | Per-level responsibility summaries incl. data engineer and ML engineer tracks | tech large eng org DE MLE medium |
| Marshmallow — Data Science progression | Small-company data progression: analyst → lead DS, 5 skill groups (progression.fyi entry) | fintech scale-up small data team DA DS medium |
| anitameh — Data Science Career Ladders | The only data-specific responsibility ladder on GitHub: DS I–VII, 5 competency categories, derived from Rent the Runway / Foursquare / Airbnb / Stitch Fix ladders (2020) | community DS full for one role |
| bmoeskau/engineering-ladders | Actively-maintained aggregator of ~30 public engineering ladders — the engineering-side counterpart of this list; mine it for companies whose ladders include data tracks | aggregator precedent · MIT |
| sdras/career-ladders | Open-sourced org ladders (career-ladders.dev), engineering-oriented | community precedent · MIT |
| jorgef/engineeringladders | Radar-chart competency framework (4 ladders × levels) — a format worth stealing, engineering-only | community precedent · Apache-2.0 |
| Data Science Leadership — career ladder guide | Editorial guide benchmarking public DS ladders, intern → distinguished + manager track | community DS MLE medium |
| StaffEng — Staff archetypes | Tech Lead / Architect / Solver / Right Hand — the senior-IC decomposition, applies cleanly to staff+ data ICs | community precedent |
Competence/skill axes rather than roles — for L&D, assessment, rubrics.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| e-CF — European e-Competence Framework (CWA 16234 v3.0) | 40 ICT competences × 5 proficiency levels — the competence axis under several national frameworks (overview) | EU standard competence axis · v3.0 free, EN 16234-1:2019 paywalled |
| CEN — 30 European ICT Professional Role Profiles (CWA 16458-1:2018) | Standard role-profile template (mission, deliverables, tasks, e-CF competences) incl. DATA SCIENTIST, DATA ADMINISTRATOR, BUSINESS ANALYST | EU standard DS DBA BA full template |
| EDISON Data Science Framework (CF-DS R4) | EU-project competence framework + 22 data-science professional profiles (CDO → data engineer) (repo) | EU/academic DS DE CDO +19 deep · CC BY 4.0 |
| ESCO–O*NET crosswalk | Official EU↔US occupation mapping — translate between the two standards' data occupations | EU/US standard crosswalk · free |
| NIST NICE Workforce Framework (SP 800-181r1) | Cybersecurity workforce framework — no data roles, but the Task/Knowledge/Skill statement architecture is the structural state of the art | US standard precedent · free |
| IIBA — Business Analysis Competency Model v4 (preview) | BA career paths + proficiency levels (full model member-gated) | professional body BA preview only |
| INFORMS — CAP analytics framework | 7-domain analytics job-task decomposition via exam blueprint | professional body analytics medium |
Certification blueprints as de-facto role definitions (vendor-authored, task-level, free):
Google Professional Data Engineer exam guide (DE),
Microsoft DP-600 Fabric Analytics Engineer (AE),
Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate (DE, 7 weighted areas),
dbt Analytics Engineering Certification study guide (AE — the closest thing analytics engineering has to an official definition).
Who to hire, what to bundle into one position, how the function scales.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| dbt Labs — The right structure for a scalable data team | Role responsibilities + centralized/embedded topologies for DA/AE/DE/DS | vendor/community DA AE DE DS team-topology |
| Locally Optimistic — The Analytics Engineer (2019) | The essay that defined the analytics engineer role, with explicit contrasts to data analyst and data engineer — the role's origin citation | community AE full definition |
| DAMA-DMBOK | The reference for the governance role family (CDO, governance lead, business/technical stewards, custodian) — book purchase required, listed here as the canonical gated source | professional body Gov Steward CDO gated |
| EDM Council — CDMC | Cloud data management capabilities incl. data ownership (registration-gated) | industry body capability model, gated |
Curricula with real substance (not link lists), one role each — their boundaries are community judgments about where roles begin and end.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| DataTalksClub — Data Engineering Zoomcamp | 7-module DE curriculum (~44k★); analytics engineering appears as module 04 — a bundling statement in itself | community DE (AE inside) deep |
| DataTalksClub — ML Zoomcamp | 4-month MLE curriculum (~14k★) | community MLE deep |
| DataTalksClub — MLOps Zoomcamp | MLOps curriculum (~15k★) — the three zoomcamps are a de-facto DE/MLE/MLOps role split | community MLOps deep |
| roadmap.sh (repo, ~360k★) | Community role-split map: distinct paths for data-analyst, bi-analyst, data-engineer, ai-data-scientist, ai-engineer, mlops, machine-learning. Absent: analytics-engineer, data-architect, governance | community role-split map · custom license |
| Data Engineering Cookbook (andkret) | Book-style DE chapters: skills, cases (~15k★) | community DE deep · Apache-2.0 |
| OSSU Data Science | Degree-shaped DS curriculum anchored to the ASA undergraduate data-science curriculum guidelines (a citable skill taxonomy itself) | community/academic DS deep |
| Microsoft — Data Science / ML / AI For Beginners | Beginner DS/ML/AI three-way split, 20–26 lessons each | vendor DS ML AI deep · MIT |
| Made With ML (GokuMohandas) | MLE/MLOps as a production lifecycle — design→develop→deploy→iterate is a responsibility structure | community MLE MLOps deep · MIT |
| Data Engineer Handbook (DataExpert-io) | DE bootcamp content + large link collection (~42k★) | community DE hybrid |
Government frameworks, national occupation systems and industry-association competence profiles — the layer between EU/US standards and individual companies. Countries where we looked and found no national data-role source are recorded too — that's census data, not omission. If your country is missing or has something we didn't find, open an issue.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| AMS Berufslexikon — Data Scientist | Full occupational description: tasks, 9 requirement areas, education paths, employment sectors, salary range (+ BIS entry with English version) | PES DS full (German, EN via BIS) |
No standalone Data Engineer entry found; nearest neighbors are Data-Warehouse-Manager and Statistiker.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Le Forem — Data scientist fiche | Wallonia PES occupation sheet with role distinctions and labor-market context | PES DS medium (French) |
| VDAB — data engineer / data scientist beroepen | Flanders PES occupation pages: skills breakdowns (key / additional / personal), shortage-occupation status, figures, linked trainings — built on the Competent fiche base | PES DE DS full (Dutch) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| CSPS — GC Data Competency Framework, 2023 | 13 data competencies in 4 clusters × 3 proficiency levels — deliberately role-agnostic | government competence axis · Crown ©, free |
Census negative (so far): the national occupation system NSP has genuinely deep occupation cards (activities, competences, regional wages) — but no dedicated data-scientist/analyst/engineer unit; "datový analytik" appears only as an alternative title on generic IT units.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| ITL — andmeanalüütik profile, 2024 | National competence profile: data analyst — role, tasks, alt titles, skills (Estonian) | industry-assoc DA full · free for career/curriculum use |
| ITL — andmeinsener profile, 2024 | National competence profile: data engineer (+ levels companion) | industry-assoc DE full |
| ITL/JUSTDIGI — andmehaldur profile v1.0, 2025 | Data steward in the context of the whole governance role family (CDO, business/technical steward, architect) | industry-assoc Steward Gov full |
| ITL/StartIT — technical data steward v1.2, 2026 | Newest of the Estonian series | industry-assoc Steward full |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Työmarkkinatori — Data-analyytikko | State labor-market portal occupation page: role paragraphs, 19-item competence list, salary data, alt titles — trilingual (FI/SV/EN) | PES DA medium |
No data-scientist entry exists (the slug 404s) — analyst only.
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Cigref — Nomenclature des profils métiers du SI, 2025 | 52 IT profession profiles from France's large-enterprise IT association (mission, activities, KPIs, career paths), incl. data engineer & data scientist; mapped to the e-CF (NF EN 16234-1) | industry-assoc DE DS full (French; EN edition exists) |
| OPIIEC — référentiel métiers: Data Engineer | Branch-observatory profession sheets with 12 macro-competences × 4 levels, certifications, mobility paths (Data Scientist too, in sector variants) | sector-observatory DE DS full (French) |
| France Travail — ROME 4.0: M1811 Data engineer | The national occupation repertoire has dedicated data codes with full fiches (missions, access paths, competences, work contexts) — M1811 data engineer, M1405 data scientist. Bonus: the whole repertoire is open data (data.gouv.fr dataset + API) | national system DE DS full + open data |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| BERUFENET — Data Scientist / Data Engineer | The federal employment agency maintains distinct, full entries for both roles: task profiles, access requirements, labor-market and pay data (Entgeltatlas), alternatives | PES DS DE full (German) |
| GI — Data Science: Lern- und Ausbildungsinhalte | The computer-science society's 14 competence fields for data science — competence-level, not role profiles | professional body DS summary |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| CareersPortal — Data Scientist / Data Analyst | The national careers-guidance site has occupation-profile pages for both roles. In our checks the profile text didn't render fully, so we can't vouch for depth — judge on visit | careers portal DS DA depth unverified |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| UNI 11621 series — ICT professional role profiles | Italy standardized e-CF-based role profiles as national norms: part 3 incl. Web Data Scientist, part 5 GeoData Analyst, part 8 (2026): 12 AI profiles incl. AI Data Scientist. The norms themselves are paywalled | national standard DS AI full but paywalled |
| AgID — competence guidelines (free profile summaries) | Free official summaries of the UNI profile set (name + mission level) | government summary (Italian) |
| INAPP — Atlante del Lavoro: ADA.14.01.20 Data Science & Analytics | National atlas of work activities: data science/analytics + data management as activity areas with expected outputs | national system activity-level (Italian) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Nākotnes darbs — Datu analītiķis profile | State-backed career portal: ESCO-derived role profiles (analyst/engineer/scientist) with named tools + live vacancy/salary data. Notably: Latvia has no national professional standard for any data role — the occupation classifier stops at group level | government portal DA DE DS moderate (ESCO-derived) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| KPMPC — ICT sector professional standard | State professional standard (legal act, amended 2025): duomenų analitikas at LTKS VI among 18 ICT qualifications, with competence units incl. named tooling (full text mirror) | national system DA DBA full (Lithuanian, legal-act form) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Rijksoverheid — KWIV | Government quality framework: 64 information-provision profiles (incl. data science, BI/data analysis) built on e-CF | government DS BI DA medium-deep |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Utdanning.no — Dataviter (data scientist) | State-published occupation description covering the whole data family on one framework — data scientist, dataanalytiker, dataingeniør, ML/KI-ingeniør each with their own subsection: tasks, sectors, education programs, salary, practitioner interview | government DS DA DE ML full (Norwegian) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| INFOdoradca+ — 252102 Analityk baz danych (data scientist) | Ministry occupation description — literally named "(data scientist)": synthesis, task inventory, competence matrices, ESCO references, downloadable full PDF | national system DS full (Polish) |
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Kariérna brána — Dátový analytik occupation card | Full national occupation card (Aliancia sektorových rád, successor of the NSP sector councils): description, tasks, general + sector competences, professional knowledge & skills, work tools; also Marketingový dátový analytik | national system DA full (Slovak) |
Mostly negative: no data-specific qualification in the INCUAL national catalog. The closest official artifacts: SEPE's annual demand-side profession profiles (built from job-ad analysis) and the vocational "Inteligencia Artificial y Big Data" specialization curriculum (royal-decree competence units).
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| swissICT — Rollen der ICT: Data Scientist | National ICT role catalog (the web version of the "Berufe der ICT" book): seniority-graded profiles with task lists and a 1–4 competence scale — e.g. Data Scientist Senior | industry-assoc DS full, graded · free (German, EN toggle) |
(The official berufsberatung.ch careers portal also describes Data Scientist and Dateningenieur — find them via its search; the portal doesn't offer stable deep links.)
| Source | What it is | Tags |
|---|---|---|
| Government Digital & Data Profession Capability Framework | The deepest openly-licensed framework in this collection: full role definitions × 4 levels × per-level skills — data engineer, data analyst, data scientist, analytics engineer, machine learning engineer, data ethicist, data governance manager, performance analyst | government DE DA AE DS MLE Gov Ethics deepest · OGL v3.0 |
For these countries we found no role-level data descriptions — but the national systems exist, and what they do have may still help you:
- 🇸🇪 Sweden — Arbetsförmedlingen's occupation guide has no dedicated data-role descriptions (data jobs appear only as vacancies), and the SSYK classification files data roles under "other IT specialists" (2519). The open JobTech Taxonomy provides machine-readable occupation/skill concepts, without prose profiles.
- 🇩🇰 Denmark — UddannelsesGuiden covers data science as education programmes, not occupations — e.g. the Datavidenskab og machine learning programme page describes data-scientist career outcomes; no occupation description exists, and the DISCO-08 classification predates data science.
- 🇵🇹 Portugal — the national qualifications catalog (377 qualifications, in mid-revision until June 2026) contains no data-specific qualification.
- 🇭🇺 Hungary — the FEOR-08 classification has no data-role entries and its occupation pages are one-line lists; the closest entry is 2151 Adatbázis-tervező és -üzemeltető (database designer/operator). The national careers portal (palyaorientacio.munka.hu) was unreachable when we checked; nothing found from IVSZ.
- 🇷🇴 Romania — the COR classification has no data-science code — its 2025 update added cybersecurity occupations instead; the nearest group is 2529 database/network specialists (unofficial mirror). ANC maintains occupational standards, but the only data-adjacent one found is a legacy database-administrator standard.
DE = data engineer · DA = data analyst · BI = BI analyst · AE = analytics engineer · DS = data scientist · ML = ML/AI engineer · MLOps · Arch = data architect · Gov = governance/steward · Lead = data manager/CDO
| Source | DE | DA | BI | AE | DS | ML | MLOps | Arch | Gov | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitLab | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| UK DDaT | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| Monzo | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||
| Dropbox | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||
| ITL (Estonia, 4 profiles) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
| NL KWIV | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
| ESCO | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
| O*NET | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
| CWA 16458 | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||
| EDISON EDSF | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
| roadmap.sh | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| DataTalksClub | ✓ | (✓) | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
| Cert blueprints (GCP/MS/DBX/dbt) | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||
| dbt team structure | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
| DMBOK (gated) | ✓ | ✓ |
Read the columns: data engineer and data scientist are everywhere; analytics engineer has exactly three substantive homes (GitLab, UK DDaT, dbt); governance/stewardship lives almost only in official frameworks (DMBOK, ESCO, the Estonian series) — and BI analyst exists as a distinct role mainly in the community's own map.
What we looked for and did not find — if you know of one, open an issue:
- In 5 of 20 European countries censused, no national data-role description exists at all (SE and DK have none in their occupation guides; PT, HU, RO have none in their qualification systems). Full per-country notes above.
- No public data-role framework from a bank, insurer, pharma, manufacturer, retailer or telco. Public frameworks come from tech, fintech scale-ups and governments.
- No substantive analytics-engineering community home: the best "awesome AE" list has 43 stars; the dbt certification guide is the role's de-facto official definition.
- No data-governance/steward learning path anywhere on GitHub (English-language awesome-lists are empty shells). Governance role definitions exist only in official frameworks.
- No data-specific career-ladder aggregator existed before this list.
- No data-architect path in the community role map, and almost none anywhere outside GitLab and official taxonomies.
So you know what's absent because it doesn't exist, not because nobody looked (verified July 2026): Buffer, CircleCI, Wise, Pipedrive, Rent the Runway, Medium's framework — public but engineering-only, no data track. Zalando, Skyscanner, Bolt, Deliveroo, Booking.com, Adyen, Shopify — no public frameworks found. Etsy — engineering-only (via bmoeskau's list). SFIA — real skills framework with data-role mappings, but licensing restricts reuse; deliberately not cataloged. levels.fyi — crowd-sourced levels/comp, no responsibility content. datastacktv data-engineer-roadmap — frozen since 2022. TDWI, MDM Institute — nothing public found (yet). Several one-author skeleton repos (empty awesome-lists for AE/governance/data quality) — listed here as the gap evidence.
Assembled July 2026 by Lauri Koobas as groundwork for an evidence-based map of European data roles (derived from job-ad data — separate, forthcoming work). Every URL was fetched and verified at inclusion time. This is a snapshot, updated occasionally — no cadence promised. Issues and suggestions welcome; PRs reviewed occasionally.
License: CC BY 4.0 for this compilation. Each linked source carries its own terms (noted in tags where known). This page links to ESCO but reproduces no ESCO content.