Data Cleansing Specialist: Excel & SQL (9-Month)

Trade Ocean South Africa; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

Trade Ocean Shared Services in Cape Town seeks a Junior Data Analyst within Business Improvement on a nine-month fixed-term contract. You will own hands-on data cleansing, reformatting, and enrichment to meet master data standards, using Excel, Power Query and SQL, while obtaining missing data from busy operational and finance managers.

You will turn messy datasets into clean, reliable tables, ensuring accuracy and repeatability through documented cleansing rules and automation.

Qualifications

• A diploma or bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Data Science, Business Analytics or a related field.
• One to two years in a data-related role such as data capturing, data cleaning, business analysis or similar is advantageous.
• Prior exposure to software implementation, ERP migration or large-scale data-cleanup projects is advantageous.
• Advanced Excel is non-negotiable, including XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, complex nested formulas, text manipulation, pivot tables and data validation.
• Strong proficiency in Excel Power Query for automating the cleaning and merging of large datasets is non-negotiable.
• Working knowledge of SQL, covering joins, filtering, aggregation and basic scripting, is non-negotiable.
• Demonstrated high attention to detail and accuracy on large datasets is non-negotiable.
• A methodical, organised temperament that sustains quality through repetitive, high-volume work is non-negotiable, as is confident, assertive communication with busy operational and finance managers.

Responsibilities

• Cleanse and standardise records to conform to master data standards.
• Extract and profile data from source systems and identify quality issues.
• Enrich records to meet completeness thresholds.
• Build repeatable Power Query and SQL routines to automate cleaning.
• Reconcile data across source systems and resolve discrepancies.
• Document cleansing rules and transformation logic for repeatability.
• Log and escalate data issues and provide ad hoc support to the department.
• Spot anomalies, duplicates and data faults and raise them to the lead.
• Secure missing data and approvals from managers.
• Deliver target datasets to the golden system of record.
• Handover documented cleansing methods at contract end.

Skills

Detailing

Excel advanced

Power Query

SQL

Data cleaning

Data profiling

Communication with managers

Education

Diploma/Bachelor's in Information Systems/Data Science/Business Analytics

Tools

Excel

Power Query

SQL

Job description

Trade Ocean Shared Services in Cape Town seeks a Junior Data Analyst within Business Improvement on a nine-month fixed-term contract. You will own hands-on data cleansing, reformatting, and enrichment to meet master data standards, using Excel, Power Query and SQL, while obtaining missing data from busy operational and finance managers.

You will turn messy datasets into clean, reliable tables, ensuring accuracy and repeatability through documented cleansing rules and automation.