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Information Technology | Data Analyst

Data Analyst

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Data Analyst develops computer programs to analyze large customer information databases for companies and organizations. Analyzes data to identify patterns and provide information relevant to a particular business, industry or field; analysis may be used for marketing, or to detect fraud in financial transactions, or for research. Develops computer programs to protect confidential customer information.

Job Outlook

There were 2495 Data Analyst job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 67718 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Data / Data Mining Analyst industry, which includes the Data Analyst career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2016:

Salary

Many new Data Analyst jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $85,949.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $86,760.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Data Analyst postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $66,471.

Education and Experience

Posted Data Analyst jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education LevelPercentage
Associate's Degree0%
Bachelor's Degree67.54%
Master's Degree22.13%
Doctoral Degree3.73%
Other6.08%

Posted Data Analyst jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of ExperiencePercentage
0 to 2 years30.89%
3 to 5 years50.55%
6 to 8 years12.86%
9+ years5.69%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Data Analyst positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

  • Communication (44.72%)
  • Management (32.08%)
  • Problem Solving (27.53%)
  • Microsoft Excel (27.06%)
  • Detail Oriented (25.17%)
  • Research (21.81%)
  • Operations (21.5%)
  • Leadership (21.14%)
  • Writing (18.83%)
  • Presentations (18.46%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

  • Computer Science (27.77%)
  • Data Analysis (83.29%)
  • Data Visualization (24.09%)
  • Dashboard (29.94%)
  • Data Governance (12.94%)
  • Python (Programming Language) (32.21%)
  • SQL (Programming Language) (52.68%)
  • Power BI (28%)
  • Statistics (25.28%)
  • Tableau (Business Intelligence Software) (30.77%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

  • Statistical Analysis (9.23%)
  • Workflow Management (10.34%)
  • Business Intelligence (17.05%)
  • Agile Methodology (9.49%)
  • Microsoft Access (8.23%)
  • Automation (10.86%)
  • Business Requirements (9.55%)
  • Data Engineering (7.92%)
  • Data Integrity (8.94%)
  • Data Mining (8.12%)
  • Data Quality (19.46%)
  • Economics (10.01%)
  • Auditing (8.82%)
  • Continuous Improvement Process (5.41%)
  • Microsoft Azure (5.38%)
  • Data Warehousing (14.43%)
  • Business Process (9.17%)
  • Extract Transform Load (ETL) (14.07%)
  • Data Management (19.76%)
  • Relational Databases (7.24%)
  • Data Collection (11.22%)
  • Information Systems (7.28%)
  • Data Modeling (17.21%)
  • R (Programming Language) (17.8%)
  • Finance (13.44%)
  • Project Management (17.6%)
  • Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (10%)
  • Marketing (8.05%)
  • Machine Learning (9.72%)
  • SAS (Software) (10.43%)
  • Process Improvement (10.49%)
  • Data Science (18.9%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

  • Data Extraction (4.37%)
  • Data Cleansing (4.11%)
  • Data Dictionary (3.02%)
  • Predictive Modeling (4.2%)
  • Looker Analytics (2.9%)

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.

  • Computer Science (41.14%)
  • Power BI (41.48%)
  • SQL (Programming Language) (78.04%)
  • Looker Analytics (4.29%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Data Analyst skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

  • Data Governance Analyst
  • Data Analytics Engineer
  • Data Analytics Intern
  • Data and Reporting Analyst
  • Data Management Analyst
  • Data Reporting Analyst
  • Data Analytics Lead
  • Lead Data Analyst
  • Research Data Analyst

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Data Analyst jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

  • Cardinal Health (716)
  • Merit America (610)
  • Molina Healthcare (604)
  • Meta (597)
  • Robert Half (590)
  • Insight Global (581)
  • Randstad (484)
  • Lincoln Financial Group (463)
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (403)
  • Nelnet (393)

North Carolina

  • Randstad (105)
  • Wells Fargo (68)
  • Motion Recruitment (47)
  • The Judge Group (46)
  • Truist Financial (40)
  • Bank of America (36)
  • USAA (34)
  • Collabera (32)
  • Insight Global (31)
  • Allegis Group (27)

NC State Programs Relevant to this Career

If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!