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

What is a strategic planning analyst and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Eduardo Zambrano

As a Strategic Planning Analyst, you will develop strategies that aim to help businesses deal with issues of organizations to reach their long and short-term goals. You will need to understand the goals and needs of the company, perform thorough research and analysis, gather data before analyzing them, and develop forecasts and models, among others.

You will need special skills as a Strategic Planning Analyst. You need to have good problem-solving skills to be able to easily solve problems along the way, time management skills in order to properly allocate your time and put it to good use, and great analytical skills to be able to determine what information is relevant and what is not before you present them to your clients.

As a Strategic Planning Analyst, you will be able to earn around $74,336 per year on average. There is also a 14% job growth rate which is not bad as a starting career. As you further your career, you can be a Project Manager, an Owner, a Vice President, and a Finance Vice President.

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

Eduardo Zambrano

Professor of Economics, Orfalea College of Business

First, here is some 'technical' advice:
Every Economics graduate should feel very comfortable with coding and data management. This training can be obtained, if your school does not offer it, by attending software and data carpentry workshops online (https://carpentries.org/). A graduate with good Python and R skills, and working knowledge of SQL, will stand out in a crowded field, no matter what sub-field of economics the graduate may be interested in.

Now, here is some 'big picture' advice:
Economic data does not analyze itself, and it does not come from 'nature.' Economic data is the result of the decisions of individuals. To understand data generated by a human activity, you need to think about the incentives that lead individuals to make the decisions that are captured in this data. Therefore, knowledge of econometrics is essential, as it is knowledge of economic theory. What distinguishes Economists from other kinds of data analysts is this emphasis on the understanding that if you do not factor accurately how individuals respond to incentives in the analysis of your data, your review is likely to be flawed or, at least, incomplete. Getting good at this way of data analysis takes many years, and graduates should be prepared to continue learning how to do this well past their college years. With this advice comes a caveat, and an acknowledgment of responsibility: every data analyst must understand that decisions based on data have ethical implications, and can affect some gender or ethnic groups in different ways. These considerations must be explicitly addressed, or the analyst may provide biased and ultimately undesirable advice to the decision-makers.

ScoreStrategic Planning AnalystUS Average

Salary

6.1

Avg. Salary $77,834

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.8

Growth rate 11%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.16%

Asian 14.20%

Black or African American 7.40%

Hispanic or Latino 8.43%

Unknown 4.44%

White 65.37%

Gender

female 44.55%

male 55.45%

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 strategic planning analyst

Explore strategic planning analyst education requirements

Most common strategic planning analyst degrees

Bachelor's

73.5 %

Master's

21.1 %

Associate

3.4 %

Start to develop specific strategic planning analyst skills

Skills	Percentages
PowerPoint	11.18%
Data Analysis	9.19%
Market Research	8.88%
Strategic Plan	5.83%
Financial Analysis	3.94%

Complete relevant strategic planning analyst training and internships

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

Research strategic planning analyst duties and responsibilities

Lead central team summarizing and prioritizing all DOD opportunities, enabling more efficient and effective resource allocation across several program departments.
Assist management with evaluation of restructuring alternatives, procurement of financing, negotiations with multiple constituencies and issuance of new securities.
Develop summary charts per SOX requirements for total IPT roll-up visibility and presentations to management.

Prepare your strategic planning analyst resume

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