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

What is a senior statistical analyst and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Cheryl Dorsey

Senior statistical analysts interpret statistical data and use it to help their company make important decisions. They can work for insurance companies, financial institutions, or pharmaceutical manufacturers, basically anywhere where there is lots of data to be organized. Senior statistical analysts need to know how to use programming languages like R and Python to analyze data. They also need to be able to model the data using tools such as MATLAB and other data visualization tools. Senior statistical analysts cannot only be data whizzes. They must communicate their findings with other members of the team in an accessible way and explain what this data means for the business.

Senior statistical analysts need to put in many years of hard work before they can work their way up to this position. Most have a master's or even a doctorate in statistics, although some are able to work with just a bachelor's degree. They also have many years of practical experience working as statistical or data analysts.

Paying their dues usually pays off. On average, senior statistical analysts earn $84,089 a year and are stars in the rapidly growing statistics and data analysis field.

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

Cheryl Dorsey

Lecturer, Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology

Overall, for a new graduate starting their career, I would suggest that you be flexible and try to learn as much as possible to develop additional skills. This will make you more marketable in the future.

ScoreSenior Statistical AnalystUS Average

Salary

6.3

Avg. Salary $80,632

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.13%

Asian 14.50%

Black or African American 4.79%

Hispanic or Latino 11.40%

Unknown 4.90%

White 64.28%

Gender

female 46.53%

male 53.47%

Age - 34

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 - 34

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior statistical analyst

Explore senior statistical analyst education requirements

Most common senior statistical analyst degrees

Bachelor's

59.5 %

Master's

31.3 %

Doctorate

6.7 %

Start to develop specific senior statistical analyst skills

Skills	Percentages
Python	13.10%
Statistical Analysis	9.93%
Data Analysis	7.24%
Statistical Methods	6.32%
ISE	5.93%

Complete relevant senior statistical analyst training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior statistical 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 statistical analyst based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior statistical analyst resumes.

Research senior statistical analyst duties and responsibilities

Execute deterministic modeling and Monte Carlo simulations in MATLAB to achieve greater mathematical confidence in results obtain from analysis.
Perform programming for internal and FDA ad hoc requests.
Prepare integrated drug safety data reports pull from multiple studies for submission to the FDA.
Provide SAS or SPSS files with site-specific data to sites after data cleaning are completed.

Get senior statistical analyst experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a senior statistical analyst. The most common roles before becoming a senior statistical analyst include statistical analyst, research assistant team lead and data analyst.

Prepare your senior statistical analyst resume

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

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