How To Become A Business Control Analyst: What It Is and Career Path

What is a business control analyst and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Joel Stevenson

A business control analyst is a specialist in developing and recommending strategies that optimize business operations. To achieve this, business control analysts routinely perform extensive research and analysis with the aim of identifying business and client opportunities, gather and extensively analyze data to determine areas of a business operation needing improvement, implements solutions against the determining problem areas, assess workforce performance, and workflow procedures while maintaining their records, and leads and encourages a business' workforce to achieve established goals.

While some careers are expected to suffer a worse fate, this career is safe to venture into as it has a "faster than average" expected growth rate of 14% between 2018 and 2028, producing around 118,300 job opportunities across the United States, based on projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In exchange for their expertise, a business control analyst can expect an average annual salary of $80,632. Additionally, the standard level of education required for this position is a bachelor's degree in a business-related field.

What general advice would you give to a business control analyst?

Joel Stevenson

Founding Director USC Columbia Technology Incubator, Associate Director Faber Entrepreneurship Center, Senior Lecturer Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management, University of South Carolina

I would not enter the job market at this time. I would apply to the Masters of Human Resources Program at U of SC. If I could not get into the program, I would take an HR job and apply again to the Master's Program. Reason...with a Master's in HR, the starting salary is right at $85,000 per year. Cost and amount of time it takes to get your Master's, $25,000, and 15 months.

ScoreBusiness Control AnalystUS Average

Salary

6.4

Avg. Salary $82,413

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.8

Growth rate 11%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 13.74%

Black or African American 7.69%

Hispanic or Latino 8.63%

Unknown 4.46%

White 65.31%

Gender

female 50.18%

male 49.82%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

6.8

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

2.2

Work life balance is very poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a business control analyst

Explore business control analyst education requirements

Most common business control analyst degrees

Bachelor's

69.2 %

Master's

15.0 %

Associate

9.7 %

Start to develop specific business control analyst skills

Skills	Percentages
Risk Management	17.53%
Internal Audit	12.69%
Governance	8.83%
PowerPoint	5.22%
Business Control	4.97%

Complete relevant business control analyst training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New business control analysts learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a business control analyst based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real business control analyst resumes.

Research business control analyst duties and responsibilities

Manage the Salesforce preparation for migration from GreatPlains to PeopleSoft and successfully execute said migration.
Upload QA reconsideration files into SharePoint as needed.
Develop SharePoint lists, forms, and workflows.
Develop a process to eliminate stall loans and remove from inventory using SQL.

Get business control analyst experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a business control analyst. The most common roles before becoming a business control analyst include business analyst, finance analyst team lead and staff accountant.

Prepare your business control analyst resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your business control analyst resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a business control analyst resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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