Post job

Clinical data manager education requirements

Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read

There are several educational requirements to become a clinical data manager. Clinical data managers usually study biology, business, or psychology. 67% of clinical data managers hold a bachelor's degree, and 16% hold an master's degree. We analyzed 1,448 real clinical data manager resumes to see exactly what clinical data manager education sections show.

The most common colleges for clinical data managers are the University of Phoenix and the University of Phoenix.

There are also many online clinical data manager courses to help get the education required to be a clinical data manager.

There are certain clinical data manager certifications that you should consider. These clinical data manager certifications include Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) and Certified Clinical Data Manager (CCDM).

What education do you need to become a clinical data manager?

What degree do you need to be a clinical data manager?

The most common degree for clinical data managers is bachelor's degree, with 67% of clinical data managers earning that degree. The second and third most common degree levels are master's degree degree at 16% and master's degree degree at 9%.
  • Bachelor's, 67%
  • Master's, 16%
  • Associate, 9%
  • Doctorate, 2%
  • Other Degrees, 6%

What should I major in to become a clinical data manager?

You should major in biology to become a clinical data manager. 21% of clinical data managers major in biology. Other common majors for a clinical data manager include business and psychology.

Most common colleges for clinical data managers

Clinical data managers often get their degrees at University of Phoenix, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and University of Maryland - College Park. Here are the most common colleges for clinical data managers in the US based on their resumes.
Clinical data manager common collegePercentages
University of Phoenix12.03%
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey7.52%
University of Maryland - College Park7.52%
Temple University6.77%
University of North Carolina at Greensboro6.02%

Best majors for clinical data managers

RankMajorPercentages
1Biology21.3%
2Business15.7%
3Psychology12.0%
4Health Care Administration8.3%
5Nursing6.6%

Best colleges for clinical data managers

The best colleges for clinical data managers are University of Rochester, University of Tulsa, and Vanderbilt University.

A clinical data manager with advanced education typically earns a higher salary and has access to better jobs. That's why Zippia looked into the best colleges for clinical data managers. We based this list on several metrics: admissions rate, retention rate, mean earnings of graduates, the ratio of working vs. non-working students ten years after admission, the average cost of attendance, and median debt for graduates who become clinical data managers.

1. Duke University

Durham, NC • Private

In-state tuition

$55,695

Enrollment

6,596

2. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-state tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

3. Yale University

New Haven, CT • Private

In-state tuition

$53,430

Enrollment

5,963

4. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, MI • Private

In-state tuition

$15,262

Enrollment

30,079

5. Georgetown University

Washington, DC • Private

In-state tuition

$54,104

Enrollment

7,089

6. University of California - Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-state tuition

$13,226

Enrollment

31,568

7. University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA • Private

In-state tuition

$17,653

Enrollment

16,405

8. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC • Private

In-state tuition

$8,987

Enrollment

18,946

9. Columbia University in the City of New York

New York, NY • Private

In-state tuition

$59,430

Enrollment

8,216

10. Chamberlain College of Nursing - Arlington

Arlington, VA • Private

In-state tuition

$19,375

Enrollment

506

20 best online courses for clinical data managers

Advertising disclosure

1. Clinical Trials Data Management and Quality Assurance

coursera

In this course, you’ll learn to collect and care for the data gathered during your trial and how to prevent mistakes and errors through quality assurance practices. Clinical trials generate an enormous amount of data, so you and your team must plan carefully by choosing the right collection instruments, systems, and measures to protect the integrity of your trial data. You’ll learn how to assemble, clean, and de-identify your datasets. Finally, you’ll learn to find and correct deficiencies...

2. Data Management with Databricks: Big Data with Delta Lakes

coursera

In this 2-hour guided project, "Data Management with Databricks: Big Data with Delta Lakes" you will collaborate with the instructor to achieve the following objectives: 1-Create Delta Tables in Databricks and write data to them. Gain hands-on experience in setting up and managing Delta Tables, a powerful data storage format optimized for performance and reliability. 2-Transform a Delta table using Python and leverage SQL to query the data for creating a comprehensive dashboard. Learn how to...

3. Basic of Clinical Data Management

udemy
4.5
(341)

Clinical Data Management...

4. Complete Data Wrangling & Data Visualisation With Python

udemy
4.4
(853)

Learn to Preprocess, Wrangle and Visualise Data For Practical Data Science Applications in Python...

5. Clinical Data Science

coursera

Are you interested in how to use data generated by doctors, nurses, and the healthcare system to improve the care of future patients? If so, you may be a future clinical data scientist!\n\nThis specialization provides learners with hands on experience in use of electronic health records and informatics tools to perform clinical data science. This series of six courses is designed to augment learner’s existing skills in statistics and programming to provide examples of specific challenges,...

6. Fundamentals of Data Analysis for Big Data

udemy
4.5
(270)

This course prepares participants to begin running data analysis on databases...

7. The Data Science Course: Complete Data Science Bootcamp 2023

udemy
4.6
(130,823)

Complete Data Science Training: Mathematics, Statistics, Python, Advanced Statistics in Python, Machine & Deep Learning...

8. Statistics / Data Analysis: Survey Data and Likert Scales

udemy
4.6
(505)

How to Process Survey Data and Analyze Likert Scales In SPSS...

9. Data Entry Skills: A Complete Data Entry Course from Scratch

udemy
4.7
(533)

A Complete Guide to Data Entry Skills: Learn Data Entry Skills and become a Data Entry Pro & Get a Online Data Entry Job...

10. The Simplest Guide to Clinical Trials Data Analysis with SAS

udemy
4.4
(1,044)

Step into the world of Pharmaceutical industry Clinical Trials Clinical Research Biostatistics Clinical SAS SAS...

11. Data Warehouse ETL Testing & Data Quality Management A-Z

udemy
4.4
(2,977)

ETL Testing and Data Quality Management for beginners with practical exercises and certificate of completion...

12. Data Science:Data Mining & Natural Language Processing in R

udemy
4.7
(387)

Harness the Power of Machine Learning in R for Data/Text Mining, & Natural Language Processing with Practical Examples...

13. Statistical Data Analysis with SAS

udemy
4.4
(575)

Understanding the Data Flow in SAS: Learn SAS Programming from Data Importing, Management, Manipulation to Data Analysis...

14. R Level 1 - Data Analytics with R

udemy
4.6
(3,228)

Use R for Data Analytics and Data Mining...

15. Streaming Big Data with Spark Streaming and Scala

udemy
4.7
(3,391)

Spark Streaming tutorial covering Spark Structured Streaming, Kafka integration, and streaming big data in real-time...

16. Data Science for Professionals

udemy
4.2
(270)

It's time to leave spreadsheets behind.....

17. Big Data for Managers

udemy
4.2
(1,263)

A foundation course for big data that covers the big data tools for various stages of a big data project and now chat GPT...

18. Introduction to Machine Learning for Data Science

udemy
4.6
(13,692)

A primer on Machine Learning for Data Science. Revealed for everyday people, by the Backyard Data Scientist...

19. Data Science A-Z™: Hands-On Exercises & ChatGPT Bonus [2023]

udemy
4.6
(33,570)

Learn Data Science step by step through real Analytics examples. Data Mining, Modeling, Tableau Visualization and more!...

20. R Programming: Advanced Analytics In R For Data Science

udemy
4.7
(8,622)

Take Your R & R Studio Skills To The Next Level. Data Analytics, Data Science, Statistical Analysis in Business, GGPlot2...

Top 10 most affordable universities for clinical data managers

The most affordable schools for clinical data managers are SUNY Farmingdale, brigham young university, and hunter college of the city university of new york.

If the best universities for clinical data managers are out of your price range, check out these affordable schools. After factoring in in-state tuition and fees, the average cost of attendance, admissions rate, average net price, and mean earnings after six years, we found that these are the most affordable schools for clinical data managers.

1. SUNY Farmingdale

Farmingdale, NY • Private

In-state tuition

$8,306

Cost of attendance

16,091

2. Brigham Young University

Provo, UT • Private

In-state tuition

$5,620

Cost of attendance

18,136

3. Hunter College of the City University of New York

New York, NY • Private

In-state tuition

$7,182

Cost of attendance

13,998

4. Clayton State University

Morrow, GA • Private

In-state tuition

$5,419

Cost of attendance

17,697

5. Purdue University

West Lafayette, IN • Private

In-state tuition

$9,992

Cost of attendance

22,430

6. Minot State University

Minot, ND • Private

In-state tuition

$7,064

Cost of attendance

15,576

7. Florida International University

Miami, FL • Private

In-state tuition

$6,556

Cost of attendance

19,434

8. University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez

Mayaguez, PR • Private

In-state tuition

$4,094

Cost of attendance

14,302

9. SUNY Polytechnic Institute

Utica, NY • Private

In-state tuition

$8,238

Cost of attendance

21,567

10. Florida State University

Tallahassee, FL • Private

In-state tuition

$5,656

Cost of attendance

21,623

Top 10 hardest universities to get into for clinical data managers

The hardest universities for clinical data managers to get into are University of Rochester, University of Tulsa, and Vanderbilt University.

Some great schools for clinical data managers are hard to get into, but they also set your career up for greater success. The list below shows the most challenging universities to get into for clinical data managers based on an institution's admissions rates, average SAT scores accepted, median ACT scores accepted, and mean earnings of students six years after admission.

1. University of Rochester

Rochester, NY • Private

Admissions rate

29%

SAT average

1,422

2. University of Tulsa

Tulsa, OK • Private

Admissions rate

41%

SAT average

1,321

3. Vanderbilt University

Nashville, TN • Private

Admissions rate

10%

SAT average

1,514

4. SUNY at Binghamton

Vestal, NY • Private

Admissions rate

40%

SAT average

1,376

5. Clemson University

Clemson, SC • Private

Admissions rate

47%

SAT average

1,337

6. Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD • Private

Admissions rate

11%

SAT average

1,513

7. Boston College

Chestnut Hill, MA • Private

Admissions rate

28%

SAT average

1,429

8. Purdue University

West Lafayette, IN • Private

Admissions rate

58%

SAT average

1,309

9. Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, MO • Private

Admissions rate

58%

SAT average

1,304

10. SUNY Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY • Private

Admissions rate

42%

SAT average

1,326

Top 10 easy-to-apply-to universities for clinical data managers

The easiest schools for clinical data managers to get into are AdventHealth University, nyack college, and d'youville college.

Some schools are much easier to get into. If you want to start your career as a clinical data manager without much hassle, check out the list of schools where you will be accepted in no time. We compiled admissions rates, average SAT scores, average ACT scores, and average salary of students six years after graduation to uncover which were the easiest schools to get into for clinical data managers.

1. AdventHealth University

Orlando, FL • Private

Admissions rate

87%

SAT average

1,016

2. Nyack College

New York, NY • Private

Admissions rate

98%

SAT average

999

3. D'Youville College

Buffalo, NY • Private

Admissions rate

100%

SAT average

1,072

4. La Roche College

Pittsburgh, PA • Private

Admissions rate

99%

SAT average

1,008

5. Saint Joseph's College of Maine

Standish, ME • Private

Admissions rate

84%

SAT average

1,069

6. Oklahoma Wesleyan University

Bartlesville, OK • Private

Admissions rate

68%

SAT average

964

7. Gwynedd Mercy University

Gwynedd Valley, PA • Private

Admissions rate

92%

SAT average

1,031

8. Aultman College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Canton, OH • Private

Admissions rate

75%

SAT average

1,085

9. Saint Martin's University

Lacey, WA • Private

Admissions rate

96%

SAT average

1,111

10. Mount Saint Mary's University

Los Angeles, CA • Private

Admissions rate

84%

SAT average

1,031

Average clinical data manager salary by education level

According to our data, clinical data managers with a Doctorate degree earn the highest average salary, at $128,237 annually. Clinical data managers with a Master's degree earn an average annual salary of $106,632.
Clinical data manager education levelClinical data manager salary
Master's Degree$106,632
Bachelor's Degree$92,719
Doctorate Degree$128,237

Clinical data manager education FAQs

Search for clinical data manager jobs

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Browse computer and mathematical jobs