Business Analyst Salary Trends and Job Profile in the USA 2021

business analyst salary trends 2021

The US hosts the offices of some of the biggest tech giants in California, banks on wall street as well a massive retail market. If you ask…what is one thing common among all three? Well, all of these companies hire business analysts to act as a bridge between their tech, operations, finance teams, and their business team. 

With the rise of data tech, the demand for business analysts has shot up, although the requirements list has also expanded to include all the latest tools and technology. The demand is so high that a large portion of these positions is filled by individuals from other countries on work visas. The high salaries and great career prospects also attract people working in other industries who often upskill themselves and start new careers at entry-level business analyst positions.

Salary trends for Business Analysts

Business Analysts in the US are paid the big bucks to crunch data and help find ways to make businesses more profitable. While most employees start at around the $50-70k mark, they can start making $100k within as little as 3-4 years.

business analyst in US salary trends
Fig: Salary in $ vs Years of experience for Business Analyst in the USA, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

It is one of the best-paying job positions in the market, even after considering variations in salary based on location. The salary trends show steady growth until the 10-year mark after when the minimum salary more or less remains the same. 

The maximum salary falls steeply after the 11-15 year mark. Since most business analysts move on to managerial or leadership positions after a certain amount of time working the numbers, the values after the 10-year mark can be taken as exceptions and not the general norm– although a further study may be required before you can be sure of the inference.

Job Postings for Business Analysts

Search results for Business Analysts showed some staggering numbers. We got more than 450,000 job posts in 2021 alone. These were spread across almost 50,000 companies. These figures are rarely seen in any other field or any other job post probably barring software engineers.

business analyst in US job postings
Fig: Search results for Business Analyst job posts in the USA from Jan-October, 2021. Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

The companies in the top 5,000 list had advertised for an average of 64 Data Analyst positions. The search results also showed almost 85k unique job titles in this field, having almost 10k keywords in the skills section.

Top skills in demand for Business Analysts

The main aim of Business Analysts is to analyze data, processes, and workflows within a company to suggest improvements and help reach targets. Data lies at the core of a Business Analyst’s responsibilities. Data from different internal departments as well as partner data is needed to be processed by Business Analysts to find answers to problem statements raised by the business team. The importance of knowledge of languages like Python or tools like R along with data visualization software like PowerBi or Tabelu is rising for Business Analysts with the rise of the digital revolution.

business analyst in US top skills
Fig: Top skills mentioned in Business Analyst job posts in the USA, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

Among the skills in the job posts mined by our team, the top listed skill has consistently been management, followed by design, analysis, and understanding of business requirements, operations, and project management. These skills have consistently occupied the top 5 positions since the beginning of 2021. Since these skills are required in almost every sector or department, their frequency is higher than sector or department-specific requirements.

Job Types for Business Analysts

On sorting our search results for Business Analyst jobs in the USA, we found that almost 3/4th of the jobs are in the mid-level section, whereas around 1/4th is entry-level.

This shows that those entering the market with a good skillset and a will to learn, move up the ladder to mid-level positions pretty quickly. This success can be partly attributed to websites like HackerRank and Kaggle where Data Analysts polish their code and data handling skills. Educational sites like Coursera have also brought tons of courses and materials available that can help individuals upskill themselves while still on the job.

Business analyst in us seniority distribution
Fig: Business Analyst Jobs based on seniority, Source: Data collected by JobsPikr

As for executive-level job positions for Business Analysts, these makeup less than 5% of all Business Analyst jobs. This is an expected number since most business analysts would move to managerial or leadership positions in the long run, where they would progress from the data crunching to the decision-making seat.

The USA and Business Analyst Jobs

The IT and the Finance sector both employ thousands of Business Analysts who crunch data and numbers to do one thing– improve profitability. The rise of data as a source of revenue or the use of data to enhance business processes has also increased the job opportunities for more business analysts. 

All the big names in the US, be it Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Citibank, JP Morgan, or Goldman Sachs– all of them hire business analysts today to fill up hundreds of positions every year. A major chunk of these jobs is taken up by computer science graduates, computer engineers, or those with experience in data science. A basic graduate degree, with some IT and data wrangling skills, is most commonly seen in the resumes of any of these applicants. What sets them apart are the problem-solving skills that they need to showcase in real-time, in the tough interview processes created by these companies, which often work as models for smaller firms.

As the world goes through a major change post the Coronavirus Pandemic, the US job market is only expected to expand further when it comes to Business Analyst positions since they will help companies in making transitions to enable them to go digital so that they do not lose their relevance in this dynamic environment.

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