How To Become A Strategic Planner: What It Is and Career Path

What is a strategic planner and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

A strategic planner is responsible for the planning of business strategies for an organization or a company. These individuals analyze markets, sales trends, and niches and offer recommendations to upper management regarding marketing approaches. A strategic planner's goal is to maintain existing markets, as well as to research future opportunities for a business to improve profit share and revenue. These individuals work in a variety of industries, from entertainment, communications, or manufacturing.

Most strategic planners have an advanced degree in business, finance, marketing, or a related field. However, a degree is not necessarily a requirement provided the applicant has required training and skills. A position as a strategic planner requires the ability to do research, analyze data and generate reports, as well as to work effectively with team members. These individuals should also possess strong communication, analytical, and organization skills.

According to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics, strategic planners can make an average of $81,000 a year, and the career field is expected to grow 12% by 2028.

ScoreStrategic PlannerUS Average

Salary

6.9

Avg. Salary $88,718

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 37.13%

male 62.87%

Age - 38

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 - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a strategic planner

Explore strategic planner education requirements

Most common strategic planner degrees

Bachelor's

68.7 %

Master's

23.7 %

Associate

3.9 %

Start to develop specific strategic planner skills

Skills	Percentages
Project Management	7.80%
DOD	7.57%
Logistics	6.18%
PowerPoint	6.07%
Portfolio	5.73%

Complete relevant strategic planner training and internships

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

Research strategic planner duties and responsibilities

Leverage native CRM service calendar to automate sales appointment and service activity scheduling & dispatch.
Select to ramp up research portfolio and ensure compliance with DoD guidelines and customer requirements.
Research, plan and draft the first-ever strategic plan for training DoD advance counterintelligence professionals.
Utilize Facebook and LinkedIn as a primary marketing tool due to their limit budget.

Get strategic planner experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become a strategic planner. The most common roles before becoming a strategic planner include operations officer, program manager team lead and project manager.

Prepare your strategic planner resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable strategic planner resume templates

Build a professional strategic planner 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 strategic planner resume.