Data analyst salary guide

The shape of the market

Data analyst is one of the widest job titles in the market. It covers people producing weekly reports in a spreadsheet and people building the models a business plans against. Pay follows that spread, which is why published averages for the title are unusually unhelpful.

The useful question is not "what does a data analyst earn" but "what does this analyst own". Ownership of a decision is what is paid for.

Typical ranges by level

• Junior analyst (0–2 years): roughly $45,000–$65,000. Mostly reporting and data quality work.
• Analyst (2–4 years): roughly $60,000–$90,000. Owns a domain and its metrics.
• Senior analyst (4–7 years): roughly $85,000–$120,000. Sets definitions, is trusted in planning conversations.
• Analytics engineer: roughly $95,000–$140,000. Pays above pure analysis because the work is closer to production engineering.
• Analytics lead / manager: roughly $120,000–$165,000.

Skills that shift you up a band

• SQL beyond the basics — window functions, query plans, and knowing why a query is slow.
• Modelling and transformation tooling, which is the main bridge into analytics engineering.
• Experiment design. Analysts who can run and interpret a test properly are scarce.
• Communication. The best-paid analysts are the ones invited to the decision, not sent the request.
• Domain depth. Two years of finance or healthcare context is worth more than a fourth visualisation tool.

Where the ceiling is

Generalist analysis flattens out at senior level in most organisations. The three routes past it are management, analytics engineering, or genuine specialisation — pricing, risk, experimentation, or a regulated domain.

Choosing deliberately between those three at around the four-year mark is the difference between a career that keeps growing and one that plateaus at a comfortable but fixed number.