Syntax error when trying to populate column with count of unique values in another column - postgresql

Question

I'm trying to count the number of unique pool operators for every permit # in a table but am having trouble putting this value in a new column dedicated to that count.
So I have 2 tables: doh_analysis; doh_pools.
Both of these tables have a "permit" column (TEXT), but doh_analysis has about 1000 rows with duplicates in the permit column but occasional unique values in the operator column (TEXT).
I'm trying to fill a column "operator_count" in the table "doh_pools" with a count of unique values in "pooloperator" for each permit #.
So I tried the following code but am getting a syntax error at or near "(":
update doh_pools
set operator_count = select count(distinct doh_analysis.pooloperator)
from doh_analysis
where doh_analysis.permit ilike doh_pools.permit;
When I remove the "select" from before the "count" I get "SQL Error [42803]: ERROR: aggregate functions are not allowed in UPDATE".
I can successfully query a list of distinct permit-pooloperator pairs using:
select distinct permit, pooloperator
from doh_analysis;
And I can query the # of unique pooloperators per permit 1 at a time using:
select count(distinct pooloperator)
from doh_analysis
where permit ilike '52-60-03054';
But I'm struggling to insert a count of unique pairs for each permit # in the operatorcount column.
Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

There is certainly a better way of doing this but I accomplished my goal by creating 2 intermediary tables and the updating the target table with values from the 2nd intermediate table like so:
select distinct permit, pooloperator
into doh_pairs
from doh_analysis;
select permit, count(distinct pooloperator)
into doh_temp
from doh_pairs
group by permit;
select count(distinct permit)
from doh_temp;
update doh_pools
set operator_count = doh_temp.count
from doh_temp
where doh_pools.permit ilike doh_temp.permit
and doh_pools.permit is not NULL
returning count;