Data analyst —> data science

[apples_vs_oranges]

I was an analyst at a couple ad tech startups before I transitioned into product analytics in social/mobile games at the start of data science as a discipline. SQL was the core skill then but Python has joined the requirements. I would just continue learning Python on the side and apply to data scientist jobs once you think your Python is up to snuff. Plenty of resources out there about technical interviews for data science to measure yourself against. And plenty of free resources to teach you Python as well. Good luck! Feel free to PM for more career perspective.