How much do data analysts make?
Answer
There is no single data analyst salary: BLS publishes pay for each type. Medians range from $78,760 to $120,230 a year (May 2025).
| Data Scientists | $120,230 | $67,240 | $199,130 | 262,440 | Bachelor's degree | +34.6% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statisticians | $105,650 | $64,000 | $174,050 | 29,030 | Master's degree | +11.0% |
| Management Analysts | $101,860 | $60,640 | $171,640 | 898,280 | Bachelor's degree | +10.1% |
| Operations Research Analysts | $88,940 | $57,060 | $159,910 | 108,510 | Bachelor's degree | +11.9% |
| Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists | $78,760 | $43,390 | $155,480 | 899,580 | Bachelor's degree | +7.0% |
BLS OEWS, May 2025 (released April 30, 2026); typical education and growth from BLS Employment Projections 2025–35.
How the types of data analyst compare
There is no single official salary for data analysts because BLS spreads the work across several occupations. Data scientists are the largest group with an analytics focus, with 262,440 jobs and a median of $120,230, the highest of these groups. They write code, build and test predictive models, and usually hold at least a bachelor's degree in math, statistics or computer science; some employers want a graduate degree.
Statisticians, with 29,030 jobs and a median of $105,650, design studies and surveys and apply formal statistical methods, often in government, health research and pharmaceuticals. A master's degree is the usual entry level, though some entry jobs accept a bachelor's. Operations research analysts, with 108,510 jobs and a median of $88,940, use optimization and simulation for scheduling, pricing and supply chains.
The two largest groups are broader. Management analysts (898,280 jobs, median $101,860, see our business analyst page) study how an organization runs and recommend changes. Market research analysts and marketing specialists (899,580 jobs, median $78,760, the lowest here) study customers and campaigns. Both usually need a bachelor's degree, and both employ many people with "analyst" in their title whose daily tools are SQL, Excel and dashboards.
Data Analyst salary by state
Median annual pay by type
| Alabama | $103,120 | — | — | — | $108,040 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | $84,110 | — | — | — | $100,190 |
| Arizona | $107,240 | — | — | — | $93,310 |
| Arkansas | $109,390 | — | — | — | $72,950 |
| California | $141,590 | — | — | — | $101,460 |
| Colorado | $117,400 | — | — | — | $104,750 |
| Connecticut | $126,340 | — | — | — | $104,960 |
| Delaware | — | — | — | — | $99,480 |
| District of Columbia | $126,490 | — | — | — | $126,140 |
| Florida | $115,820 | — | — | — | $88,610 |
| Georgia | $104,340 | — | — | — | $99,600 |
| Hawaii | $102,130 | — | — | — | $101,750 |
| Idaho | $89,380 | — | — | — | $88,710 |
| Illinois | $106,560 | — | — | — | $104,270 |
| Indiana | $91,470 | — | — | — | $95,560 |
| Iowa | $95,830 | — | — | — | $85,530 |
| Kansas | $98,130 | — | — | — | $81,210 |
| Kentucky | $91,760 | — | — | — | $95,630 |
| Louisiana | $78,760 | — | — | — | $95,540 |
| Maine | $90,880 | — | — | — | $75,530 |
| Maryland | $136,370 | — | — | — | $121,680 |
| Massachusetts | $131,750 | — | — | — | $134,720 |
| Michigan | $100,590 | — | — | — | $93,640 |
| Minnesota | $128,800 | — | — | — | $100,790 |
| Mississippi | $69,490 | — | — | — | $69,390 |
| Missouri | $97,090 | — | — | — | $97,270 |
| Montana | $100,490 | — | — | — | $97,470 |
| Nebraska | $98,230 | — | — | — | $75,360 |
| Nevada | $98,540 | — | — | — | $81,600 |
| New Hampshire | $100,620 | — | — | — | $104,270 |
| New Jersey | $135,280 | — | — | — | $105,820 |
| New Mexico | $95,850 | — | — | — | $93,180 |
| New York | $130,460 | — | — | — | $112,250 |
| North Carolina | $119,090 | — | — | — | $98,560 |
| North Dakota | $81,900 | — | — | — | $90,220 |
| Ohio | $102,630 | — | — | — | $94,270 |
| Oklahoma | $86,310 | — | — | — | $99,420 |
| Oregon | $125,990 | — | — | — | $101,840 |
| Pennsylvania | $106,850 | — | — | — | $93,830 |
| Rhode Island | $102,440 | — | — | — | $99,640 |
| South Carolina | $91,990 | — | — | — | $100,660 |
| South Dakota | $96,150 | — | — | — | $83,620 |
| Tennessee | $100,330 | — | — | — | $99,260 |
| Texas | $122,090 | — | — | — | $101,400 |
| Utah | $108,090 | — | — | — | $83,530 |
| Vermont | $127,070 | — | — | — | $107,520 |
| Virginia | $126,430 | — | — | — | $117,580 |
| Washington | $163,350 | — | — | — | $109,170 |
| West Virginia | $85,090 | — | — | — | $97,470 |
| Wisconsin | $106,680 | — | — | — | $98,780 |
| Wyoming | — | — | — | — | $98,540 |
Median annual pay by state, BLS OEWS, May 2025. “—” means BLS did not publish the figure. Each occupation’s own page has its full state table with cost-of-living-adjusted pay.
What data analysts do
A data analyst turns records a company already has (sales transactions, website visits, claims, survey answers, patient encounters) into answers a manager can act on. Most of the work happens in SQL, spreadsheets and a dashboard tool such as Power BI or Tableau, with Python or R for heavier statistics. A typical request sounds simple, like why returns rose last quarter, but answering it means finding the right tables, fixing duplicates and missing values, and checking that the numbers match finance's figures before anyone sees a chart.
Analysts sit inside marketing, finance, operations, product or public health teams, or in a central business intelligence group. They spend much of the week with non-technical colleagues, agreeing on what to measure and explaining results. The job is office or remote computer work on a full-time schedule. BLS does not publish a separate "data analyst" occupation, so this page compares the official groups that analyst jobs fall into, led by data scientists, the occupation BLS uses for much of this work.
A typical day
- Meet with a manager to pin down the business question and which numbers will answer it
- Write SQL queries to pull data from company databases and join tables together
- Clean the data: remove duplicates, fix formats, and decide what to do with gaps
- Build and update dashboards and recurring reports in Power BI, Tableau or Excel
- Run comparisons, trend checks and basic statistical tests to see whether a change is real
- Write a short summary or slide deck that explains the result and what to do next
- Document data definitions so other teams calculate the same metric the same way
Also called: data analytics, business intelligence analyst.
How to become a data analyst
Full guideMost data analysts get a bachelor's degree in statistics, math, computer science, economics or business and learn SQL, a spreadsheet tool and a dashboard tool along the way, which takes about 4 years. No license is needed; career changers often add a certificate such as Google Data Analytics and a portfolio, which can take under 6 months.
- Typical time
- 4 years (bachelor's degree)
- Fastest: About 6 months (certificate plus portfolio, for people with a degree or related work)
- Minimum education
- Bachelor's degree for most jobs; some employers hire on skills and a portfolio
- License
- Not licensed (certification optional)
- Typical training cost
- $294–$45.5K
- See the guide for what it includes
Read the step-by-step guide to becoming a data analyst: each step with its time and cost, education options, exams, licensing and advancement.
Is it worth it? Training cost against pay
Compare careers- Training time
- 4 years (bachelor's degree)
- Typical path in our guide
- Training cost
- $294–$45.5K
- Tuition and exam fees, before aid
- Median pay
- $120,230
- $69,250 above the all-jobs median ($50,980)
- Cost vs. one year's pay
- 0–38%
- Training cost as a share of a year at the median
Once qualified, the pay difference over the typical US job at the median ($69,250 a year before tax) would repay the training cost in less than a year after training ends (4 years (bachelor's degree) in our guide). This is a rough guide: it ignores taxes, financial aid, interest, earnings given up while training and how pay changes over a career. How we calculate ROI.
Job outlook for data analysts
BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
- Projected growth
- +34.6%
- All occupations +3.5%
- Jobs in 2025
- 275,600
- 371,000 projected for 2035
- Openings each year
- 24,800
- New jobs plus replacements
- Self-employed
- 1.9%
- Not in the pay figures above
BLS projects data scientist jobs to grow 34.6% from 2025 to 2035, from 275,600 to 371,000, against 3.5% for all occupations. That works out to about 24,800 openings a year. BLS ties the growth to the amount of digital data organizations collect and to businesses in every industry wanting to use it to improve processes and design products, including through AI tools. Strong growth does not mean easy entry: many people are training for analyst roles, so a portfolio and real SQL skills still matter for a first job.
Outlook shown for data scientists; each type’s growth is in the table at the top.
Related careers and their pay
- Business Analyst$101,860
- Biomedical Engineer$109,370
- Statisticians$105,650
- Statistical Assistants$50,330
- Financial Specialists, All Other$81,100
Related occupations from O*NET 31.0; median annual pay from BLS OEWS, May 2025.
Data Analyst salary FAQ
What is the difference between a data analyst and a data scientist?
A data analyst mostly answers defined business questions with existing data: queries, dashboards, trend reports and simple tests. A data scientist does more programming and statistics, building and testing predictive models and machine learning tools. In practice the titles overlap, and BLS counts much analytics work under data scientists. Many people start as analysts and move into data science after learning Python, statistics and modeling. See our data scientist page.
Is data analytics a growing field?
Yes, by the official projections. BLS expects data scientist jobs to grow 34.6% between 2025 and 2035, about ten times the 3.5% rate for all occupations, with about 24,800 openings a year. The reasons are more digital data and more firms using it, including for AI projects. The related groups grow more slowly, and entry-level analyst openings attract many applicants.
What industries hire the most data analysts?
For data scientists, BLS lists publishing, broadcasting and content providers as the largest employer group at 12% of jobs, followed by insurance carriers, computer systems design and management of companies at 10% each, and credit intermediation (banks and lenders) at 6%. Marketing and survey analysts cluster in consulting, finance and information companies. Government agencies and hospitals also hire analysts, often under statistician or management analyst titles.
Can data analysts work remotely?
Many can, at least part of the week. The work is done on a computer with cloud databases and dashboard tools, so it does not depend on being on site. Employers that handle sensitive health, financial or government data may require office work or company-managed equipment. Entry-level analysts often benefit from time in the office, where it is easier to learn the business and how its data is recorded.
Sources
Data updated October 28, 2026 · Text checked against its sources October 28, 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, released April 30, 2026, SOC 15-2051
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025–2035, released September 2026
- O*NET 31.0 Database (15-2051.00), U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under CC BY 4.0; tasks rewritten by Careers and Salaries
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities by state and metro area, 2024
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), US city average, May values
- U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard field-of-study and institution data, most recent cohorts, released 2026-10-15
- Data Scientists, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · checked October 28, 2026
- Mathematicians and Statisticians, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · checked October 28, 2026
- Market Research Analysts, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · checked October 28, 2026
- Operations Research Analysts, Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · checked October 28, 2026
- Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate, Microsoft Learn · checked October 28, 2026
- CompTIA Data+ certification, CompTIA · checked October 28, 2026
- Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, Coursera / Google · checked October 28, 2026
- License Finder, CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) · checked October 28, 2026
Careers and Salaries is not affiliated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics or any government agency. Found an error? Tell us; corrections are listed on the editorial policy page.