How To Become A Data Administrator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a data administrator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted Expert

Kathleen Bobay PhD, MSN

Data administrators use specialized software to store, organize and retrieve data. Data administrators are crucial to the efforts of every other department in a company as they help the marketing, sales, finance, and operations departments by providing accurate, complete, and current data on the customers, products, inventory, and vendors. Your job description includes regularly updating the company's database with information and providing reports on data analysis, forecasts, and other research activities that lead to decision making.

Data administrators also develop, implement and revise policies, standards, procedures, and guidelines necessary to effectively manage the database environments. You must be proficient in data management, Java, DB2, Unix, and a host of other skills. The job also demands that you pay keen attention to detail, communicate well, and have good presentation skills. The most commonly required minimum educational requirement is a bachelor's degree. You will earn an average annual salary of $74,517 annually or $35.83 per hour.

What general advice would you give to a Data Administrator?

Kathleen Bobay PhD, MSN

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Development Graduate Program Director

Basic programming and basic statistics, being a productive member of a team

ScoreData AdministratorUS Average

Salary

6.3

Avg. Salary $80,072

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

4.4

Growth Rate 9%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.54%

Asian 17.75%

Black or African American 7.98%

Hispanic or Latino 9.18%

Unknown 5.19%

White 59.35%

Gender

female 58.11%

male 41.89%

Age - 46

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 - 46

Stress Level

4.4

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

9.8

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

8.1

Work Life balance is good

6.4 - fair

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Key steps to become a data administrator

Explore data administrator education requirements

Most common data administrator degrees

Bachelor's

58.5 %

Associate

19.5 %

Master's

8.5 %

Start to develop specific data administrator skills

Skills	Percentages
Data Management	11.81%
Java	11.45%
Profiling	9.72%
DB2	7.20%
Unix	7.20%

Complete relevant data administrator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New data administrators 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 data administrator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real data administrator resumes.

Research data administrator duties and responsibilities

Manage the LDAP requests for user provision.
Manage replication & distribution servers, versioning dev & production servers.
Design and lead team efforts to reduce batch windows through application on new features.
Manage access to file shares, DFS shares, IIS servers and terminal services.

Prepare your data administrator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your data administrator 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 data administrator resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

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