Administrative staff vs office specialist

The differences between administrative staff and office specialists can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both an administrative staff and an office specialist. Additionally, an administrative staff has an average salary of $77,101, which is higher than the $33,477 average annual salary of an office specialist.

The top three skills for an administrative staff include telephone calls, word processing and travel arrangements. The most important skills for an office specialist are customer service, data entry, and patients.

Administrative staff vs office specialist overview

	Administrative Staff	Office Specialist
Yearly salary	$77,101	$33,477
Hourly rate	$37.07	$16.09
Growth rate	-8%	-5%
Number of jobs	119,030	98,760
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 44%
Average age	50	47
Years of experience	2	2

What does an administrative staff do?

As the administrative staff, they primarily provide administrative and secretarial support for the department. Typically, they do report-writing, filing and scheduling, and payroll. They plan department weekly meetings, schedule conference calls, and work on solving administrative related concerns and issues. They do a complex task that involves multi-tasking from the preparation of department reports, analyzing data, and finding solutions. It is a requirement to be an experienced, collaborator, and trained cross-functional communicator. Moreover, other duties will include scheduling company-initiated activities, meetings, and events.

What does an office specialist do?

An office specialist is responsible for performing administrative and clerical duties to support the organization's daily operations. Office specialists must be highly organizational, as well as having excellent time-management skills to handle work units. They have duties including data entry procedures, greeting visitors, responding to customers' inquiries through phone calls and e-mails, and filing and sorting documents. Office specialists are responsible for creating meeting reports, scheduling appointments, evaluating financial statements, coordinating with other staff for event planning, and assisting the senior management with complex functions.

Administrative staff vs office specialist salary

Administrative staff and office specialists have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Administrative Staff	Office Specialist
Average salary	$77,101	$33,477
Salary range	Between $58,000 And $101,000	Between $25,000 And $43,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	Washington, DC
Highest paying state	California	Massachusetts
Best paying company	NVIDIA	Brookhaven National Laboratory
Best paying industry	Professional	Finance

Differences between administrative staff and office specialist education

There are a few differences between an administrative staff and an office specialist in terms of educational background:

	Administrative Staff	Office Specialist
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 44%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	Western Carolina University

Administrative staff vs office specialist demographics

Here are the differences between administrative staff' and office specialists' demographics:

	Administrative Staff	Office Specialist
Average age	50	47
Gender ratio	Male, 31.9% Female, 68.1%	Male, 18.3% Female, 81.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 9.2% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 16.2% Asian, 3.8% White, 66.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%	Black or African American, 8.1% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 19.8% Asian, 8.4% White, 57.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.2%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between administrative staff and office specialist duties and responsibilities

Administrative staff example responsibilities.

Support medical doctors, manage sensitive and confidential records pertaining to high risk patients with emphasis on accuracy.
Prepare PowerPoint presentations for management distribution.
Maintain payroll information by collect, calculate and enter data.
Prepare briefing slides and presentation material using PowerPoint and Visio.
Maintain accounting statements, databases, and other financial information such as payroll coding and budget preparation
Provide cloud base customer relationship management with Salesforce for optimization in coordination of the workforce development program and other community orient events

Office specialist example responsibilities.

Provide support for enrolling patients into health coverage programs and manage sensitive patient information to ensure accuracy and confidentiality.
Manage and maintain patients' medical records by utilizing computer applications management database processing system to ensure county compliance.
Manage operational FedEx relationship through order fulfillment, shipment tracking, and communication with parties involve in shipment transaction.
Provide assistance to office staff including preparing and proofreading memos and grants, transcribing meeting minutes for staff and answering phones.
Perform multiple bookkeeping duties including departmental payroll, print financial reports and other financial material as needed.
Communicate HIPAA compliance to staff, field and outside agencies.

Administrative staff vs office specialist skills

Common administrative staff skills

Telephone Calls, 19%
Word Processing, 16%
Travel Arrangements, 7%
Payroll, 6%
Personnel Actions, 6%
Financial Reports, 5%

Common office specialist skills

Customer Service, 18%
Data Entry, 10%
Patients, 9%
Office Equipment, 6%
Phone Calls, 6%
Word Processing, 4%

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Office and Administrative Industry
Administrative Staff
Administrative Staff vs Office Specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

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