208: I Analyzed 8,553 Data Analyst Salaries — Here's What They're ACTUALLY Paying in 2026
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I analyzed 8,554 data analyst salaries. Here's what the market actually looks like right now.
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⌚ TIMESTAMPS
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01:33 – The real median salary
05:57 – Lowest vs highest paying roles
10:18 – Salary by experience level
11:57 – Salary by job title
13:39 – Remote vs hybrid vs onsite
15:33 – Salary by state
16:48 – Salary by skill
18:48 – What I'd do with this
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Transcript
So I just analyzed 8,554 data analyst
jobs to find out exactly what they
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:are paying right now and the results.
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:They even shocked me.
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:And I look at data, job
listings for a living.
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:So in this episode, I'll break
down 8,000 different salaries.
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:In every way that you possibly can by
experience level, by job title, by remote
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:versus in office, by state and by skill.
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:And I'll show you the highest paid
job and the lowest paid job and
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:exactly what you need to do to land
that $212,000 data analyst role.
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:So let's go ahead and get into it.
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:By the way, if you're new
here, my name is Avery Smith.
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:I'm a senior data analyst with 10 years
of experience, and now I spend all of my
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:time trying to help people like you land.
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:Data jobs and everything that I'm going
to be showing you all the data and all
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:the graphs and all the salaries is going
to be coming from Find a data job.com,
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:which is actually a data analyst
job board where that you can
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:use to find data analyst jobs.
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:It's actually one that I run and we
post dozens of data jobs for free.
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:Online every day that you
guys can apply for right now.
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:So if you haven't bookmarked it
yet, please go ahead and do so.
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:It's a really useful resource
and there'll be a link in the
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:description down below as well.
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:And all the graphs and data I'll
be showing you is available as well
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:in our salary report right here.
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:And we'll have a link to it
in the show notes down below.
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:And if you're listening only via audio
on Spotify or Apple Podcast or something,
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:I'm gonna do my absolute best to narrate
everything that I'm showing today.
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:That way you can basically
picture the graphs in your head.
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:Okay, so let's get to what actually
really shocked me right away, and there's
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:a few things I really wanna highlight.
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:The first one is actually
this median salary.
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:The median salary of the 8,553
jobs I looked at was basically 92.
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:Thousand dollars.
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:And I thought that was pretty impressive
because if you go online and you
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:check like Indeed or Glassdoor,
they're gonna tell you the median
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:salary is like $82,000 or $85,000.
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:And I'm saying it's about seven to
$10,000 more, which is like what?
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:10 plus percent more.
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:It's not insignificant.
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:Now, of course our data
sets are very different.
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:We have different amount of jobs,
different types of jobs, so on
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:and so forth, so, so it's not
something to get too bogged down
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:in, but I think this is a good sign.
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:At least the jobs that I'm
posting on find data job.com
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:have a little bit higher
salary on general and average.
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:So another reason you guys should
be using find data job.com.
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:The other thing that blew me away is the
stats right here that out of the 8,553
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:jobs that I analyzed, only 3,451 of
them had anything to do with salaries.
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:Had only any mention of
salary or salary data.
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:That's only 40%.
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:Meaning the remaining 60% of
data analysts, job listings,
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:don't list the salary.
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:Don't mention the salary at
all, which is a huge bummer.
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:Now, some states in the United States
require the job poster to actually say
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:what the salary range is, but many don't.
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:And hopefully in the future it'll
be a requirement to actually have
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:the salary listed, because otherwise
you're wasting job hunter's times,
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:and honestly, you're wasting the
hiring manager's times as well.
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:It's just better if we can be
transparent and make sure that we
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:know what we're applying for and what
you're actually expecting from us.
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:Now, to show you all the nitty
gritty on the statistics of what
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:these different salaries are,
we're looking at salary, right?
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:That is a quantitative variable.
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:Basically a number.
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:It ranges from zero to, I don't know,
$10 million theoretically, right?
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:And we're looking at a
quantitative variable.
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:We often wanna look at what's called
the distribution of that numeric
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:value Distribution is basically.
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:The shape of the data or the shape of that
column, or the shape of that, you know,
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:field or whatever you wanna call it, to
show a shape of a data or a distribution.
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:You'd often use what's called a
histogram, where you basically create
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:these little bins of the value and you
count how many jobs go into those bins,
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:and then you stack a bar basically
on how many counts are in there.
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:Now I think histograms are great, but I
also think they're a little bit boring.
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:And so what I did was I actually created
this raincloud chart right here, which
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:works very similar to a histogram, but
I think it looks a little bit cooler and
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:gives us a little bit more of an insight.
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:So let me explain how this graph works.
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:We're actually showing
distribution in three unique ways.
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:First, we have basically a histogram
up here on the top, but instead
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:of using bars, it's smoothed over.
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:This is called a kernel density
estimator or ridge line.
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:I like to call it ridge line.
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:I think it's a cooler name 'cause it
kind of looks like a mountain or a hill.
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:And basically wherever you are on
the x axis, the higher this is,
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:the more jobs that have a salary
that fits around right there.
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:So, for example, you know
our median is around $92,000.
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:That would probably be about right
here, and that's why you see the peak.
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:So for example, you see
that our median is $92,000.
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:It'd be about right here, and
that's kind of why you see a
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:big peak around that space.
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:A decent amount of the jobs pay
around 92,000 on average, where
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:that mountain is a little bit
lower towards the higher ends.
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:This is because there's not many
jobs that pay, you know, around
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:$177,000 below this ridge line.
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:You have a dot.
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:Each one of these dots represents
a data analyst job listing.
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:The dots are basically placed at
their salary and if their multiple
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:jobs have the same salary, they're
stacked on top of each other.
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:So this is basically like an upside
down histogram, but instead of
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:using bars, we are using dots.
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:This is kind of what's called a B
swarm plot, and I really like it
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:'cause it lets you see, you know, the
nitty gritty, you know, all:
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:Of these different dots on the page at
once, and then at the bottom we have
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:a classic box in whisker box plot that
shows us the median right here, the first
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:quartile or the 25 percentile here, the
third quartile or the 75 percentile here.
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:And then you have a whisker on both ends
with outliers over here on the right.
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:All three of this.
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:Are showing the exact same thing.
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:Basically the distribution of data analyst
jobs, they call it a rain cloud chart
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:because you have this kind of mountain
on top with a bunch of dots below it.
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:This is the cloud, and these are
the raindrops falling to a flat line
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:on the bottom, which we call Earth.
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:That's why it's called
the rain cloud chart.
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:Now, I wanna dive into
some of these jobs and.
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:See, you know, why they're
paying so high or paying so low.
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:But before we do, if you like charts
like this, you like data like this and
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:you want more of it, then you should
definitely sign up for my newsletter.
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:It's 100% free.
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:You can go to data career
jumpstart.com/newsletter,
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:or there'll be a nice short
link down below to sign up.
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:I send cool charts like this.
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:I send data jobs every week
and data insights like the
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:salary is $92,000 on average.
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:And if that stuff that you think is going
to help you in your career, which is
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:stuff I think is gonna help you in your
career, you should definitely sign up.
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:Alright, let's go ahead and dive
into some of these lower paying
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:jobs and high higher paying jobs.
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:Let's start with the lower.
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:So for the lower paying jobs, we
have this job right here, which
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:I think is quite interesting.
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:If you click on the link, it'll
actually open up in a new window.
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:Now this job is actually expired, but
we keep the description 'cause we can
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:learn a lot from, this is actually
a part-time job that's 15 to $19 per
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:hour and the hourly wage is $14 an
hour, which is about $28,000 a year.
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:Fun little fact, if you take
your hourly rate and you
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:basically, um, multiply it by.
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:Two, that's the amount of thousands
of dollars you make as salary.
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:So 14 times two is about 28, and
that's why it's $28,000 a year.
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:Now, if you actually look closely
at this, this is only for people
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:who are enrolled at Enzyme College.
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:So not a really good fit for most
of you guys watching probably, but
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:I think we can still learn from it.
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:I think the low end of the job is 28,000.
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:I mean, that's super low in the
us um, but it is for college
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:students, so it kind of makes sense.
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:It looks like the responsibilities would
be to create dashboards using Power
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:bi, Excel, Smartsheets, power Automate
Co-Pilot Studio, and API Connectors.
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:So honestly, this is a pretty
advanced, um, role, uh, because it,
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:you need to use API connectors and
some of these other tools that I'm
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:not even sure a hundred percent what.
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:All these are, and that's
why we gave it a mid-level.
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:We actually said this was
a mid-level six outta 10.
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:I think that's a little bit high.
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:It probably should be closer to a four,
and I would still count it as entry
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:level because it is an internship,
but that's pretty interesting.
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:Um, we can go back over here and also take
a look at some of these lower paying jobs.
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:A behavior data specialist, a data
specialist and a data specialist.
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:And I include data specialist jobs
on this website because they're kind
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:of like a step below a data analyst.
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:Oftentimes these roles,
let's open up one of these.
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:A lot of these are in, looks
like Kentucky, I guess.
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:This one's in Maryland.
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:A lot of the times these
roles are pretty simple.
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:So let's click on one of these roles.
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:Maybe this one right here.
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:This is a data specialist for Kentucky
Community and Technical College.
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:It looks like this one is still
open and the pays about $34,000.
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:That's the salary right there.
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:I like these jobs because they
often don't require all that much.
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:Right?
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:So like you need to have an
associate's degree, which is fine.
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:Right?
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:Uh, just a little bit of
college experience basically.
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:And it looks like you're mostly doing.
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:Tracking and analyzing data, we didn't
even capture any skills that it mentions.
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:And so usually the, the barrier to entry
for these data specialist roles quite
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:a bit lower than like a data analyst.
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:Obviously they pay less than a data
analyst, um, but they can be like a
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:great entry level data analyst type role.
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:Okay, let's go to some of
the higher paying jobs.
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:Over here on the right, we can start
with this business intelligence engineer
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:role that pays about $204,000 per year.
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:Let's take a look at that.
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:It is remote, which is pretty awesome.
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:Um, we'll talk about more about remote
and hybrid and in person here in a second.
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:It is for a company called RTX,
that is an aerospace and defense
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:company that provides advanced
system and services for commercial,
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:military and government customers.
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:So we're kind of in military
government space, and it looks like
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:you would be a technical subject
matter expert for the Microsoft data
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:and analytics stack with secondary
skills in Databricks and Snowflake.
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:So.
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:Yeah, basically you'd be using Power
bi, power Query, dax, Microsoft
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:Power Platform, um, as well as
doing some stuff with Snowflake,
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:Databricks, and SQL based systems.
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:And you can see we captured that
this requires Python, SQL, power, bi
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:Spark, snowflake and Databricks, or
at least those were the things that
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:were mentioned in the job description.
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:Now we rated this a nine outta 10
on the senior level, so it is a
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:pretty senior level role, and you'll
notice that some of these roles.
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:That are high paying, are more senior
and require a little bit more complicated
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:tools, like of course they're still gonna
require Python, SQL, and Power bi, but
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:then Spark, snowflake and Databricks
are a little bit harder to get access
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:to, a little bit harder to learn.
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:And so they are kind of reserved for
these more high-end, high paying roles.
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:Okay.
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:I found another one I
think is interesting.
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:It's this, uh, data analyst role at.
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:Y Ernest and Young, I guess.
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:Right?
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:And it looks like the
salary's about $174,000.
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:We actually ranked it only a
five out of 10 on seniority.
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:Let's see if we can figure
out if we agree or not.
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:Uh, bachelor's degree in
some technical fields.
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:That's, that's how I
read this, by the way.
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:I know it says like all these specific
fields, but I just kind of look
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:at, you know, a bachelor's degree.
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:That's good.
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:Or I guess it has a master's degree
with, uh, four years of experience.
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:So this is still kind of mid, it
is looking for years of combined
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:experience with these different things.
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:It requires SQL, spark, AWS,
Azure, snowflake, and Databricks.
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:So, yeah, we'll, we'll cover this
here in a second while how these
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:different salaries depend on these
different skills mentioned, but these
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:more tough skills like Azure A w.
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:Cloud-based, infrastructure based, coding
based stuff is really probably going to
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:get you kind of these higher paying jobs.
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:Now, let's go ahead and
break this down a little bit.
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:Let's go ahead and look
at the experience level.
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:So if we look at the experience
level, we see something that maybe
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:isn't super surprising that entry
level jobs pay the lowest at a
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:median salary of $76,000 per year.
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:Mid-level is next at a median salary of
$90,000 per year, and a senior level role.
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:Pays the most at $113,000 per year.
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:Now, that's not really surprising.
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:The more experience you have,
the more you'd expect to get
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:paid theoretically, right?
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:However, what I will tell you is
that we do have a lot of overlap
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:in the distributions, right?
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:Like for example, there is a decent amount
of height entry level over, you know,
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:around the median of the senior level.
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:So there are some entry level data jobs
that pay over six figures for sure.
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:Even though the median's only $76,000.
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:And there are some senior roles that
even pay below the entry level median.
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:So like for instance, this senior
financial analyst role at Amazon
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:somehow apparently only pays $60,000,
which is, you know, $16,000 below the
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:median for an entry level data drop.
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:So there's more that goes into
how much you get paid than
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:just what your experience level
and your entry level, right?
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:So there's more that goes into how you
get paid than just your experience level.
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:You can be entry level and
be making more than someone.
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:Whose senior level, and that's
actually really, you know,
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:counterintuitive to a lot of people.
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:But there's a lot of factors
that we're gonna dive into.
256
:One of the most important
ones is the location.
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:So for example, if we go to some of these
higher paying jobs in entry level, yeah.
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:Like for instance, Palo
Alto or New York, right?
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:It's expensive to live in New York,
it's expensive to live it in California.
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:And so in order to be competitive,
they have to raise those rates, even
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:though those are maybe entry level
type jobs versus some of these senior
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:levels, like this senior data analyst.
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:Ah, this is in California too, but
there's a lot of factors that go into it.
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:Let's go ahead and explore another one.
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:Next one I wanna explore is
actually called the job role.
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:And this might be kind of controversial,
but I'm, my definition of data
267
:analyst is that you are analyzing
data to improve an organization.
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:And so I think there's a lot of
families or a lot of job titles that
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:fall into the data analyst family.
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:Marketing analysts, financial
analysts, business analysts, BI
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:engineer, analytics engineer.
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:Now are some of these roles
a little bit different?
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:Sure.
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:But I kind of consider them
roughly all to be data analyst.
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:D roles.
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:So the marketing analyst is actually
the lowest at an average of 88,000,
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:followed by financial analysts at 93,000.
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:Uh, data analyst, just like
strictly data analyst is 95,000.
279
:And this one's really surprising.
280
:Business analyst was at 99,000 on
average, followed by the bi slash
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:analytics engineer at $105,000.
282
:I thought the business analyst was pretty
interesting because business analyst
283
:to me is actually like a little bit
easier to get than a data analyst role
284
:because a lot of the times you're not
needing to be necessarily a data expert.
285
:You're more like a business
expert who happens.
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:To, you know, data capabilities.
287
:So I would really have thought that
that would've been a little bit
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:lower on average than a data analyst.
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:But for at least our data
set, it's a little bit higher.
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:So I thought that was interesting.
291
:'cause a lot of these, you know, if
we go look at one of these roles, I'm
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:gonna randomly click on one of these
and this is always an adventure when
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:we're randomly clicking on things.
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:For instance, this just
is Excel and Power bi.
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:It's nothing too crazy in terms of what
skills you have to have a bachelor's
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:degree, three to five years of experience.
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:We rated it a seven out of 10 on mid,
I think that's even a little bit high.
298
:But like this job right here
is, is nothing super crazy and
299
:has a a low salary, but there's
also gonna be high paying ones.
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:So it's just interesting.
301
:I will say that this bi slash analytic
analytics engineer being the higher
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:paying one goes back to what I said
earlier, but like the more senior
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:roles, once you're doing more coding,
more infrastructure, that often is
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:reflected with a higher paid salary.
305
:'cause that stuff's hard to
do and really important to do.
306
:Right now.
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:Let's go ahead and look
at the work arrangement.
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:Onsite versus remote versus hybrid.
309
:And this is something that
I think is very interesting.
310
:And before I actually get too into it,
I wanna just highlight that everyone
311
:wants a remote data job, and I get it.
312
:I love working remote.
313
:I would say 95% of us
want remote work, right?
314
:However, that's kind of a problem
because it definitely is not 95%
315
:of the data roles that are remote.
316
:In fact, if you come up here to resources
and you go to the remote versus.
317
:Hybrid versus onsite report,
you'll be able to see that only
318
:about 15% of data jobs are remote.
319
:23% of them are hybrid and 63% of them,
two thirds of them basically are onsite.
320
:And this is a really interesting problem
because let's just say, I dunno, 80%
321
:of us want to be working remotely.
322
:Well, that means, uh, a lot of us
are going to be, uh, upset because
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:there's only 15% of data jobs.
324
:Available that are remote.
325
:And that's where I really
like hybrid, because hybrid is
326
:basically remote in a lot of times.
327
:Right?
328
:Like, what if I said that you
only had to come to the office
329
:once a week that's 80% remote.
330
:Obviously hybrid's a spectrum, but
there is, it's a lot less competitive
331
:because you know, people really want the
remote jobs and there's actually more
332
:hybrid jobs than there are remote jobs.
333
:Anyways, back to the Sal.
334
:Onsite actually pays the lowest, which
I thought was really interesting.
335
:I would really want to go
back into this data and really
336
:thoroughly double check it.
337
:I mean, all these curves
look pretty much the same.
338
:The, the, the median salary for
onsite is 90, for remote it's 95 and
339
:hybrid it's 95 as well, but slightly
a little bit more, uh, skewing right
340
:to, to make it a little bit higher.
341
:To me, this means, you know, you
guys should really chase hybrid
342
:roles because they pay the most.
343
:And I think they're actually
not as competitive as remote.
344
:They might be a little bit more
competitive than onsite, but still
345
:working at least a little bit from
home is awesome, and I think everyone
346
:should have the chance to do it.
347
:So personally, if I was advising you,
I'd say go for these hybrid roles, but
348
:for the most part, it doesn't look like
it affects your salary all that much.
349
:So I guess go for whatever
ones you think you can land.
350
:Next, I wanna show you how
location makes a difference.
351
:As we talked about earlier, you'd expect
if you work in more of a cheap state
352
:to get paid a little bit less versus a
more expensive state like California,
353
:New York, to get paid a little bit more.
354
:So it looks like at the bottom we
have Arizona at 77,000 South Carolina
355
:at 78, Oregon, 78, and my Utah, oh
no, as the fourth lowest paying place
356
:to be a date analyst at $80,000.
357
:Followed by Pennsylvania, $80,000.
358
:Now I will say the sample size
for these is extremely low.
359
:Like for instance, South Carolina,
we only have nine jobs, so it's not
360
:necessarily statistically significant,
but just kind of fun to look at.
361
:And as we continue to post more jobs,
we'll this data will be updated Next.
362
:We have California at a hundred thousand,
Indiana at 102,000, Arkansas at 103,000.
363
:That is shocking.
364
:And obviously a small
sample size of only five.
365
:Virginia at 131 in Nova Scotia.
366
:Small sample size, but
$127,000 as the median.
367
:Uh, what I notice here is that California
and Virginia are probably only two
368
:that have statistically significant
data to actually say they pay a bunch.
369
:California, it's expensive place to live.
370
:There's also a bunch of tech companies
like Google and Tesla and all these
371
:other companies or whatever, right?
372
:And Virginia has a lot of military
and government contractors and it's
373
:also an expensive place to live.
374
:'cause DC's kind of basically right there.
375
:The last thing I wanna break down
for these salaries is what skills
376
:are mentioned and what you can
kind of get paid based off of.
377
:What skills.
378
:You know.
379
:The bottom skill is Excel at 88,000,
followed by Power BI at 96,000.
380
:Tableau, 99,000 sql a
hundred thousand AWS.
381
:102,000 Python 102,000 R,
106,000, Azure 110,000 Snowflake.
382
:A whopping 1 21 K,
followed by DBT at 131 K.
383
:So what can we learn from this?
384
:I think basically what I take away is the
easier a skill is to learn and easier a
385
:skill is to, or a tool is to actually use.
386
:The lower the salary expectation is,
for example, we've all learned Excel.
387
:We've all used Excel a little bit,
and it's not hard to learn how
388
:to analyze data in Excel, and so
that's why you know it's the lowest
389
:data tool, lowest paying data tool.
390
:Next, there's power behind Tableau.
391
:These are your business
intelligence dashboard tools.
392
:These aren't super complicated
to get started with.
393
:If you can figure out how
to make a PowerPoint slide.
394
:You can figure out how to create a
dashboard in Power BI in Tableau, it's,
395
:you know, click, it's drag and drop.
396
:It's basically click-based.
397
:No scripting.
398
:Although there is scripting in both of
them, they can get pretty complicated.
399
:But to get started, um,
they're pretty simple.
400
:Next, you kinda have the sql, Python,
and R group, and these are the
401
:languages, um, things that you have to
code and that takes a lot more time to
402
:learn and a lot more time to perfect.
403
:So that's why they get paid a
little bit more, followed by.
404
:Lastly, this cohort of AWS
Azure, snowflake, and DBT.
405
:This is more cloud-based.
406
:Infrastructure systems type stuff, that's
one hard to learn and two hard to do well.
407
:And then three really important to make
sure everything's working correctly.
408
:Um, 'cause this is more like critical
infrastructure as opposed to just
409
:kind of maybe some analytics.
410
:So I still think that Excel Power, bi,
Tableau, SQL, are the easiest data tools.
411
:To learn the fastest and
also the most in demand.
412
:So this is probably where I'd start.
413
:And then once you get more into,
once you've learned those, and then
414
:once you've learned those, you can
get into more of the specialty tools
415
:like AWS or R or Azure or Snowflake,
and that's what's going to actually
416
:help you get paid more in the end.
417
:Alright, so I'm hoping all
this salary data made you more
418
:informed with all these numbers.
419
:And remember that numbers equals
knowledge, and knowledge is
420
:power, and power is confidence.
421
:So be more confident.
422
:You know what you can expect salary wise.
423
:Now you know what you need to chase
after, what skills you need to learn,
424
:what roles you need to go after.
425
:Now be confident and go
out there and get it.
426
:I mean, that's exactly why
I built find a data job.com
427
:is to help people like you
confidently land data jobs.
428
:So make sure you check it
out, links to the description.
429
:Thank you for watching or listening,
and I'll see you in the next one.
