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

What is a principal analyst and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Erik Johnson Ph.D.

As a principal analyst, your responsibilities include assisting in preparing required documents, conducting reviews, ensuring projects and business objectives are well understood by the project team, and supervising the progress of the team. Furthermore, you are to ensure proper solutions are provided to every need or requirement and provide training or coaching to junior staff. Beyond all these, you will be required to regularly research the latest processes and computer advancements to improve efficiency and timely completion of projects. Keeping a record of progress and updating the team on new developments are also among the things you will need to do as a principal analyst.

You need a bachelor's degree in business or a related field to get this job. Also, you need to possess advanced technical and problem-solving skills and must be very good at using Microsoft Word and excel. Principal analysts earn an annual average salary of $104,714 or $50.34 an hour.

What general advice would you give to a principal analyst?

Erik Johnson Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Economics, Carthage College

Economics gives you a set of tools to analyze a variety of policy and business problems. However, determining which tools to apply in which situation requires that you learn the industry, you are working from top to bottom. When you begin a new job in a new field, be sure to do everything you can to understand how the organization and the industry work to understand the primary incentives that everyone faces. One right way to do this is to make as many connections within the company you are working for as possible, and always be on the lookout for new opportunities within the company and how they can help you learn more. Moreover, do your best to ensure that a significant portion of your job involves some creative endeavors, such as economic modeling or building tools for yourself or others to use. As computing power continues to become cheaper, and artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, relatively repetitive tasks become more comfortable and easier to automate. Therefore, you will have less job security. Creative tasks, such as modeling and tool building, are difficult to automate and are more likely to provide you with more satisfaction.

ScorePrincipal AnalystUS Average

Salary

8.0

Avg. Salary $114,156

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.3

Growth rate 9%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.19%

Asian 14.44%

Black or African American 10.59%

Hispanic or Latino 11.30%

Unknown 5.03%

White 58.45%

Gender

female 24.38%

male 75.62%

Age - 42

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 - 42

Stress level

5.3

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.5

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal analyst

Explore principal analyst education requirements

Most common principal analyst degrees

Bachelor's

62.5 %

Master's

23.8 %

Associate

8.2 %

Start to develop specific principal analyst skills

Skills	Percentages
Portfolio	16.11%
ERP	7.82%
Project Management	5.45%
Data Analysis	4.73%
Process Improvement	4.45%

Complete relevant principal analyst training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal 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 principal analyst based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal analyst resumes.

Gain additional principal analyst certifications

Principal analyst certifications can show employers you have a baseline of knowledge expected for the position. Certifications can also make you a more competitive candidate. Even if employers don't require a specific principal analyst certification, having one may help you stand out relative to other applicants.

The most common certifications for principal analysts include Project Management Professional (PMP) and IT Information Library Foundations Certification (ITIL).

More About Certifications

Research principal analyst duties and responsibilities

Develop EVM analysis reports and access reports on a monthly basis for the use of the IPT leads.
Manage administration and supervise development of logistics policies and programs to ensure they meet the changing conditions in program requirements.
Mine CRM software and leverage professional network for high quality referrals.
Maintain defect-free deployment of software solutions through thorough planning, testing and QA efforts.

Get principal analyst experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a principal analyst. The most common roles before becoming a principal analyst include senior analyst, consultant team lead and project manager.

Prepare your principal analyst resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable principal analyst resume templates

Build a professional principal analyst resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your principal analyst resume.