As a Research Analyst, you will be collecting and studying data coming from different sources. After collection and study, you will then make recommendations to the management in order to help businesses or companies determine the products' target market and ideal price.
With a job growth rate of 20%, you are also given a chance to explore other roles and look into other tasks. You can be a Consultant, an Operations Manager, a Branch Manager, or a Manager and Assistant Vice President. This will all be dependent on the path you plan to pursue.
There are special skills you need to have in order to do your job well as a Research Analyst. You need to have great analytical skills in order to filter out information. You also need to have good communication skills to be able to deal with different people. Lastly, you need to be detail-oriented to avoid making mistakes.
How to Become a Research Analyst
What is a Research Analyst
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Research Analyst. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.52 an hour? That's $69,727 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 20% and produce 139,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Research Analyst Do
There are certain skills that many Research Analysts have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed Analytical skills, Communication skills and Detail oriented.
How To Become a Research Analyst
If you're interested in becoming a Research Analyst, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 69.6% of Research Analysts have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 17.9% of Research Analysts have master's degrees. Even though most Research Analysts have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a Research Analyst. When we researched the most common majors for a Research Analyst, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Research Analyst resumes include Associate Degree degrees or Doctoral Degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Research Analyst. In fact, many Research Analyst jobs require experience in a role such as Internship. Meanwhile, many Research Analysts also have previous career experience in roles such as Research Assistant or Customer Service Representative.
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Research Analyst Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of Consultant you might progress to a role such as Operations Manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title Manager, Assistant Vice President.
Research Analyst Jobs You Might Like
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Average Salary for a Research Analyst
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12 Research Analyst Resume Examples
Build a professional research analyst resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 12+ resume templates to create your research analyst resume.
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Ryan Rose Research Analyst |
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Aaron Chavez Research Analyst Experience Research Analyst2017 - Present Deloitte•Armonk, NY
Assistant Analyst2016 - 2017 IBM•Armonk, NY
Equity Analyst2012 - 2016 American International Group•New York, NY
Skills Project ManagementCitiQuantitative AnalysisHplcMedicaidHong KongSurvey DataCredit AnalysisSurvey DesignForeign Currency Education Bachelor's Degree Accounting2009 - 2012 Pace University•New York, NY |
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Learn How To Write a Research Analyst Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Research Analyst resumes and compiled some information about how to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Research Analyst Resume Examples And TemplatesAnd if you’re looking for a job, here are the five top employers hiring now:
Choose From 10+ Customizable Research Analyst Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Research Analyst templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Research Analyst resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Research Analyst Demographics
Research Analyst Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among Research Analysts, 49.2% of them are women, while 50.8% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among Research Analysts is White, which makes up 68.9% of all Research Analysts.
- The most common foreign language among Research Analysts is Spanish at 34.7%.
Find the best Research Analyst job for you
Research Analyst Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Research Analyst Jobs - $105K and Up
- Work From Home Research Analyst Jobs
- Entry Level Research Analyst Jobs
- Part Time Research Analyst Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Research Analyst Jobs
Top Colleges for Research Analysts
1. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Private
4. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
5. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Private
6. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
7. Ball State University
Muncie, IN • Private
8. Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN • Private
9. Howard University
Washington, DC • Private
10. Texas State University
San Marcos, TX • Private
Find the best Research Analyst job for you
Research Analyst Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Research Analyst Jobs - $105K and Up
- Work From Home Research Analyst Jobs
- Entry Level Research Analyst Jobs
- Part Time Research Analyst Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Research Analyst Jobs
Online Courses For Research Analyst That You May Like
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Master One of the Most In-Demand Skills for Data Analysts in 2020!...
Beginner and Intermediate Data Analytic Methods for Testing Main Effects & Interactions with SPSS and the PROCESS Macro...
Top Skills For a Research Analyst
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.1% of Research Analysts listed Research Projects on their resume, but soft skills such as Analytical skills and Communication skills are important as well.
Best States For a Research Analyst
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a Research Analyst. The best states for people in this position are New York, Alaska, Washington, and New Jersey. Research Analysts make the most in New York with an average salary of $90,910. Whereas in Alaska and Washington, they would average $89,828 and $88,077, respectively. While Research Analysts would only make an average of $81,150 in New Jersey, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New York
$90,910
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$78,265
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$81,150
Avg. Salary
How Do Research Analyst Rate Their Jobs?
4.0
4.0
Interesting job, lots of flexibility • February 2019What do you like the most about working as Research Analyst?
I get to work on data that interests me and help make sure that data collection goes as planned. Lots of problem-solving with the flexibility to work a slightly different schedule or from home. Show MoreWhat do you NOT like?
Lots of sitting. Show MoreTop Research Analyst Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ Research Analysts and discovered their number of Research Analyst opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Wells Fargo was the best, especially with an average salary of $58,115. JPMorgan Chase & Co. follows up with an average salary of $104,398, and then comes CoStar Group with an average of $79,044. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a Research Analyst. The employers include Edward Jones, FireEye, and MDRC
Becoming a Research Analyst FAQs
How do I get experience as a research analyst?
You can get experience as a research analyst during college through classes and internship experiences. A person can also seek entry-level research jobs and volunteer work to build up their knowledge and various skills and tools to succeed as a research analyst.
An excellent way to gain experience as a research analyst is to choose a degree program in college that will provide training and knowledge in research. Typical programs include mathematics, economics, and business. However, a person could study history or even philosophy and easily transition that experience into a role as a research analyst.
An additional benefit to pursuing a research-based degree program is that a person will have an opportunity to pursue an internship. Many research analyst roles require experience in a role such as an internship or similar entry-level research position.
What degree do you need to be a research analyst?
You need a bachelor's degree to be a research analyst. Typical fields of study that research analysts have included business, economics, and mathematics.
Research analysts can be found everywhere and in any industry, not just the financial sector. Therefore, nearly any academic background could viably serve a prospective researcher, as long as the researcher has the requisite technical, mathematical, and analytical skills.
However, more often, especially for more active research analyst roles, employers seek out people who have a master's degree. A research analyst with a master's degree in either operations research or management science is often preferred over other candidates.
While pursuing a master's degree in operations research, a person will take math programming, methods, statistics, and data classes. Meanwhile, in a program for management science, a person will take courses that involve systems and models, analysis, optimization, logistics, and engineering.
These master's degree programs prepare a research analyst to pursue higher management or more specialized research roles.
What is the career path for a research analyst?
The career path for a research analyst is varied. Typically, this path starts as a research assistant and becomes a research specialist, research manager, or research director. The specific direction any given research analyst takes depends on their unique set of interests and aptitude.
Entry-level research associates work under the direction of a more senior research analyst creating data models and conducting research. New hires may work with a variety of analysts for months as a general introduction to the job.
Most research associates are eventually assigned to a single working group covering their area of research within the organization. Once they have gained more experience and excellent performance, associates can move into analyst positions, taking more active roles in the research process.
After this, they can move into more specialized research roles or management roles depending on their interests and career progression.
What skills do you need to be a research analyst?
The skills you need to be a research analyst are math skills paired with specific interpersonal skills. This combination allows the research analyst to recognize trends and patterns and understand the human motives that may drive such practices.
In the role of research analyst, a person works with large quantities of data, so to be successful, a person needs to be comfortable around math and statistics. Being a research analyst means seeing the relationships between the data and making correlations between data trends.
However, a research analyst is more than a data compiler. Noticing patterns within the data reveals clues as to what the data can tell you, what is helpful for your purpose, and what to pass up. a research analyst needs to see similarities and group the data accordingly to utilize the data.
In addition, they need to understand human motives. Depending on what is researched, a research analyst may work directly with people or analyze their actions or beliefs to analyze the data accurately.
It helps to have a background in psychology, sociology, or anthropology to understand why people do what they do.