Today’s business analysts are critical assets for any company that wants to improve their business processes or enhance the power of their products and services. Within the organization, business analysts straddle the line between the IT group and line of business users to help make data-driven decisions and recommendations to improve efficiencies. Because they are so valuable, business analyst salaries have risen dramatically in recent years as companies seek to streamline and improve operations. Business analysts play an important role in all types of companies in a wide range of industries.
Here we will explore what types of skills business analysts must have to be successful, where business analytics salaries vary in different industries and geographic locations, and how professionals can improve their business analyst salary prospects.
Average Business Analyst Salary
The salary for business analysts in the United States varies between $72,729 and $90,485, with the average clocking in at $80,994, according to salary.com. Of course, the business analytics salary can vary greatly depending on a range of factors, including years of experience, education and certifications, location, and other skills that are paired with business analytics skill on the job.
Note: These averages can include figures for business operations analyst salary and business process analyst salary
Business Analyst Salaries by Experience
Depending on a candidate’s years of experience, a business analyst salary can vary widely. According to Indeed, years of business analytics experience impacts salary as follows:
1) 1 to 2 years of analytics experience:
Average salary of $80,650
2) 3-5 years of analytics experience:
Average salary of $85,450
3) 6 to 9 years of analytics experience:
Average salary of $89,582
4) More than 10 years of analytics experience:
Average salary of $94,744
Business Analyst Salary by US City
Business analytics professionals can improve their chances of higher salaries if they focus on certain geographic regions. The Indeed data shows how the salaries vary across the US. These are the top earners:
Houston, TX
$103,831 per year
Chicago, IL
$88,544 per year
Tampa, FL
$87,323 per year
Dallas, TX
$79,775 per year
Phoenix, AZ
$79,757 per year
St. Louis, MO
$78,484 per year
New York, NY
$71,256 per year
Columbus, OH
$66,685 per year
Charlotte, NC
$64,696 per year
Even areas that are not known as high-tech centers provide great opportunities for business process analysts who want to improve their long-term career prospects. Business analytics salaries will range depending on the types of projects you work on, the types of analytics tools you use on the job each day, and how deep your data-driven analyses go to help improve business efficiency in your organization.
How Can Business Analysts Grow Their Salary?
It’s not enough for a business analyst to simply rely on their analytics skills to retain or grow their salary. In fact, there are a number of key strategies that business analytics professionals can leverage to improve their salary prospects. Following are four important recommendations:
Gather Data
Business analysts spend a large portion of their time on the job examining data to help drive decision making, so consider applying this special talent to find out how you’re being paid, and what you can do to improve your competitive position in the market. Learn what the market rates are for your specific type of business analyst role, location, and industry. The more you know, the better armed you’ll be.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for More
Asking for a promotion or a raise in pay isn’t always easy, but managers and employers do value business analysts who are confident and know their value. Time your strategy for inquiring, and be sure to tie any increase with your loyalty to the company and how much value you can add to your particular organization.
Find Your Strengths and Specialties
Make yourself more valuable and bankable by putting time into personal development. Read books, attend workshops, and improve your day-to-day skillsets. High earners know how to apply themselves well, and they know how to features their specialties, particularly deepening your industry-specific skills.
Consider New Internal Opportunities
If you feel you’re struggling in your current role, don’t be afraid to ask about other opportunities in different departments, or other roles within your existing organization. Getting a higher salary might just be possible by exploring other teams that give you new responsibilities and business challenges, and connecting with the right people to see where your skills might be applied.
Types of Business Analysts
From a functional standpoint, business analyst activities differ based on their intended roles in the organization. There are four core types of business analyst roles:
IT Business Analyst
The most common category of business analyst is the IT-focused analytics professional, who focuses on software development, particularly identifying and prioritizing technical requirements, creating innovation solutions to development problems, and designing the most highly optimized tech stack for a project.
Functional Business Analyst
This type of business analyst works directly with various lines of businesses and their respective business functions. They focus on surfacing challenges and pain points that the organization is experiencing, creating data-driven and analytics-driven business process solutions, and adapting those solutions to each stage of the business process.
Reporting Business Analyst
A reporting business analyst is a data specialist who analyzes and develops standards for preparing and delivering reports for a business audience. They focus on maintaining data systems and implementing initiatives to enhance the integrity and viability of data for reporting and documentation.
Enterprise Business Analyst
These business analytics roles are focused on providing support for business systems, project and testing plans and solutions that span multiple departments. They manage data and technology governance, execute on project deliverables, and define how to achieve both functional and non-functional requirements and solutions.
Hiring Companies and Average Business Analyst Salary
You can see that business analysts are in high demand in all types of organizations in the US, ranging from professional and financial services to hardware and software developers. Following are a number of top companies that are hiring, number of analytics job openings, and the respective business process analytics salary ranges.
Deloitte (Business Analyst)
78,801 open jobs
Average Salary: $86,391
Salary Range: $71K – $106K
Infosys (Business Analyst)
3,178 open jobs
Average Salary: $89,137
Salary Range: $74K – $107K
McKinsey & Company (Business Analyst)
1,391 open jobs
Average Salary: $118,526
Salary Range: $96K – $147K
Accenture (Business Analyst)
34,368 open jobs
Average Salary: $100,988
Salary Range: $82K – $124K
JPMorgan Chase & Co (Business Analyst)
3,414 open jobs
Average Salary: $89,772
Salary Range: $73K – $111K
Cisco Systems (Business Analyst)
1,307 open jobs
Average Salary: $129,590
Salary Range: $107K – $160K
Capital One (Business Analyst)
4,301 open jobs
Average Salary: $92,447
Salary Range: $76K – $114K
Amazon (Business Analyst)
23,212 open jobs
Average Salary: $123,176
Salary Range: $99K – $156K
IBM (Business Analyst)
8,382 open jobs
Average Salary: $105,550
Salary Range: $86K – $131K
Oracle (Business Analyst)
4,699 open jobs
Average Salary: $127,073
Salary Range: $104k – $157k
Top Skills for Business Analyst
A business analyst salary is driven by the type of skills required by different employers. A ZipRecruiter survey reveals the types of business analyst skills that are most important. The most important skill sets include things like innovation, communication skills, auto delivery, detail-oriented activities, business analytics and problem-solving skills. These are the most important skills that candidates will want to include on their resumes to maximize their business analyst salary potential.
Top Business Analyst Skills Required by Employers
1) Business Analyst: 25.81%
2) Technical: 11.41%
3) Analysis: 11.13%
4) Collaboration: 8.52%
5) Communication Skills: 8.27%
6) Business Process: 8.03%
7) Documentation: 7.72%
8) Project Management: 6.97%
9) Innovation: 6.40%
10) Facilitation: 5.72%
Specific Skills Listed by Employees
1) Business Analyst: 16.53%
2) Analysis: 12.22%
3) SQL: 10.58%
4) Technical: 9.39%
5) Project Management: 9.31%
6) Microsoft Excel: 9.01%
7) Collaboration: 8.51%
8) Documentation: 8.34%
9) Microsoft Visio: 8.07%
10) Business Process: 8.05%
How You Can Optimize Your Business Analyst Salary
Business analysts in today’s competitive hiring environment require a unique combination of skills and talents. They range from performing data-driven analyses and understanding the technical specifications to managing projects, collaborating with functional and business stakeholders, and solving problems on a departmental and enterprise level.
The most important thing you can do to prepare for a career as a business analyst (and for those who are already working as an analytics professional, how to grow your business analyst salary) is to focus on developing the necessary skill sets and applying them on the job.
The business analytics certificate is designed to help you achieve business analysis certification and master the skill sets necessary to excel on the job. Real-world projects are included in the classes to ensure you can apply your skills at your next role. You will learn everything from forecasting demand, predicting sales, and understanding economic impact on operations to conducting comparative studies, generating data set parameters across geographies, manipulating and reporting data using various reporting tools, surfacing irregularities and anomalies in the data, and learning now to assess accurate business performance based on data-driven analytics.
