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The differences between decision support analysts and technical support technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a decision support analyst and a technical support technician. Additionally, a decision support analyst has an average salary of $81,227, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a decision support analyst include data analysis, SAS and tableau. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
| Decision Support Analyst | Technical Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $81,227 | $40,210 |
| Hourly rate | $39.05 | $19.33 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 96,068 | 165,677 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
A decision support analyst is a support staff who perform a variety of specialized analyses such as financial analyses and cost-benefit analyses. Your duties typically include documenting analytical findings, designing and developing data reporting systems tailored for business operations, and providing team members with processed data as needed. Additionally, you will be responsible for managing data integrity and accuracy, diagnosing and troubleshooting system errors, and providing recommendations for improvements of the decision support systems. You are also expected to train other team members on how to use the system.
Technical support technicians are skilled professionals who resolve computer or information technology-related concerns. They may do installations, repairs, or maintenance activities of various applications or computer hardware. They are sometimes assigned specific issues or concerns to resolve so that they will not be bombarded with various issues. This means that they can now specialize in a specific family of concerns. Technical support technicians may provide on-site support, going directly to the person who needs help and doing what needs to be done or troubleshoot the problem in person. They may also be offsite and would usually be manning helpdesk hotlines. Offsite technical support technicians walk the caller through the steps they should do to fix the issues. As such, when a technical support technician is offsite, they are expected to be good communicators and will be able to provide clear instructions.
Decision support analysts and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Decision Support Analyst | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $81,227 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $58,000 And $112,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | Mountain View, CA | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | California | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | Meta | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | Manufacturing | Finance |
There are a few differences between a decision support analyst and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Decision Support Analyst | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 73% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Pennsylvania | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between decision support analysts' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Decision Support Analyst | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 49.1% Female, 50.9% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.5% Unknown, 5.5% Hispanic or Latino, 13.9% Asian, 12.9% White, 55.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% | Black or African American, 10.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.9% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% |
| LGBT Percentage | 11% | 11% |