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

What is a senior planning analyst and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Brian Meehan

Senior planning analysts design and implement business and marketing strategies to increase company profits and reduce costs. Private businesses, non-profit organizations, and governments hire them to work full-time shifts, usually during daytime business hours. Senior planning analysts report to executives and must be able to work in a collaborative, high-stress environment. They typically work in offices and rarely travel outside the office to perform their regular job duties.

Some of the functions that they perform include analyzing data, studying daily operations, consulting with staff, creating reports, preparing financial forecasts, and overseeing personnel working directly under them. Essential skills required for the position include time management, mathematics, computer skills, problem-solving, analytical, communication, and multitasking. Employers require senior planning analysts to have a bachelor's degree in business, economics, finance, or a related field of study; although, a master's degree is preferred for a senior position such as this one. Many employers also look for senior planning analysts who have previous experience in retail or an industry-specific field of over five years.

The average hourly salary for the position is $35.96, which equates to $74,807 annually. The career is expected to grow in the coming years and create new opportunities all across the United States.

What general advice would you give to a senior planning analyst?

Brian Meehan

Assistant Professor of Economics, Campbell School of Business, Berry College

My advice would be to apply broadly for jobs and take advantage of the robust set of career opportunities a degree in economics provides. It also gives you a better gauge of the opportunity cost (next best alternative) of accepting a job. Try to determine what that best alternative is. Additional training can also be a good option. Those individuals interested in graduate schools, professional schools, law schools, MBAs, etc. should look into these opportunities. Improving your human capital stock (via training and education), while weathering a recession, and then capitalizing on a healthier job market at the end of this training, is a pretty good route (assuming the recession is short).

ScoreSenior Planning AnalystUS Average

Salary

6.2

Avg. Salary $79,238

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.8

Growth rate 11%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 13.34%

Black or African American 8.14%

Hispanic or Latino 8.95%

Unknown 4.50%

White 64.90%

Gender

female 41.04%

male 58.96%

Age - 43

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 - 43

Stress level

6.8

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

2.2

Work life balance is very poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior planning analyst

Explore senior planning analyst education requirements

Most common senior planning analyst degrees

Bachelor's

71.9 %

Master's

19.4 %

Associate

5.7 %

Start to develop specific senior planning analyst skills

Skills	Percentages
PowerPoint	10.03%
Project Management	6.72%
SR	6.58%
Customer Service	6.55%
SQL	6.06%

Complete relevant senior planning analyst training and internships

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

Research senior planning analyst duties and responsibilities

Manage the transition to one multi-site ISO certification from 13 individually certify DCs for project annual savings of $36K.
Lead the customer logistics professional development program.
Manage cross-functional teams responsible for network infrastructure, enterprise applications, servers, capacity and business continuity planning.
Use knowledge of GAAP accounting to validate models.

Get senior planning analyst experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a senior planning analyst. The most common roles before becoming a senior planning analyst include planning analyst, finance analyst team lead and senior finance analyst.

Prepare your senior planning analyst resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior planning 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 senior planning 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 senior planning analyst resume templates

Build a professional senior planning 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 senior planning analyst resume.

Apply for senior planning analyst jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a senior planning analyst job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do senior planning analysts rate their job?

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Senior planning analyst reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jan 2020

Pros

Well when looking in the figures you will understand immediately how the organization doing, then when you send the info and your are correct and they don't listen then they realize that you where right, you look at there faces you will feel like you own the world.

A zippia user wrote a review on Nov 2019