Completely new to gaming laptops and need some spec advice!

Hi all, I’ve been wanting to get a gaming laptop for a while as I’m moving away from console, and was waiting until I had more money, but my current laptop has kicked the bucket so my timeline has had to speed up and I’m getting so lost with what spec I need!

If I provide what I’m looking to use it for, I’m hoping I could get some advice of what I’d likely need, and some price expectations? I don’t think I need anything super high spec, but I also don’t want to overpay for something - I’m UK based if that helps?

I need the laptop to be able to run Steam, but I’m not interested in any high res graphics, ray tracing, etc. for example I play Portal, borderlands, fallout, resi, etc. maybe a couple co-op games like REPO, etc. Obviously I’d like it to be playable, but I don’t need any of the bells and whistles a lot of new gen games have.

I’m also re-training to pivot to Data Analytics for work, and looking to take some courses in SQL, PowerBi, etc. so I’d need the laptop to be able to run software well without crashing/lagging too much.

Any advice on brands, etc. is super helpful. My budget currently is around 500 max, so I’d be buying second hand, but I’m not sure what to expect for that budget really. Thanks in advance!