As gravitational wave detectors improve, the rate at which sources are observed is steadily increasing. Scientific exploitation of these sources relies on careful analysis of the data, and so gravitational wave data analysis is also a rapidly growing and evolving field. In this Perspective, we provide an introduction to the basic concepts of gravitational wave data analysis with reference to current pipelines. We describe some of the computational advancements and machine learning techniques that have recently been introduced to reduce the computational burden of the analysis. We conclude by discussing some of the challenges that will be encountered in the analysis of data from future detectors.