Skip to main content
Planning and Analysis - Careers

Planning and Analysis

Planning and Analysis | Senior Data Analyst

Senior Data Analyst

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Analyzes data to identify patterns and provide strategic 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. Works at a senior level, so may manage more junior data analysts or may be partially or fully responsible for determining research direction and strategy.

Job Outlook

There were 500 Senior Data Analyst job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 12681 in the United States.

In combination with other careers in the Data / Data Mining Analyst industry, which includes the Senior Data Analyst career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2012:

Salary

Many new Senior 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 $88,030.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $91,081.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Senior Data Analyst postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $77,155.

Education and Experience

Posted Senior 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 Degree3%
Bachelor's Degree59%
Master's Degree34%
Doctoral Degree0%
Other5%

Posted Senior 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 years19%
3 to 5 years57%
6 to 8 years18%
9+ years6%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Senior 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 Skills (41%)
  • Microsoft Excel (35%)
  • Teamwork / Collaboration (32%)
  • Problem Solving (27%)
  • Research (24%)

Defining Skills

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

  • Data Analysis (87%)
  • SQL (63%)
  • Tableau (38%)
  • Python (36%)
  • Microsoft Power BI (28%)

Necessary Skills

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

  • Data Management (19%)
  • Project Management (16%)
  • SAS (15%)
  • Business Process (14%)
  • Economics (13%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

  • Data Manipulation (7%)
  • Data Lakes / Reservoirs (6%)
  • Predictive Models (6%)
  • Data Engineering (5%)
  • Data Validation (5%)

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 along with the marginal value: the average salary difference between postings that request that skill and those that do not.

  • Teradata (2%) – marginal value $10,501
  • Data Dictionary System (1%) – marginal value $6,801

Alternative Job Titles

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

  • Data Analyst II
  • Lead Data Analyst
  • Data Analyst III
  • Senior Data Analyst Remote

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 Senior Data Analyst jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

  • Ryder System Incorporated (508)
  • Centene Corporation (500)
  • Humana (403)
  • Deloitte (182)
  • Cox Communications (173)

North Carolina

  • Centene Corporation (24)
  • Humana (19)
  • Ryder System Incorporated (11)
  • Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (8)
  • Duke Energy Corporation (6)

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!