Business Intelligence Analyst Jobs: What You Do, What You Earn, and Which Degree Fits

A business intelligence analyst turns company data into reports, dashboards and recommendations that managers use to make decisions. BLS counts the job with data scientists, whose May 2025 median pay was $120,230. The usual entry point is a bachelor’s degree. An AI degree is optional, but it can help you move toward forecasting and machine learning work.

What Does a Business Intelligence Analyst Do?

You are the person who answers “what is actually happening in the business?” with data instead of a guess. Sales dip in one region, customers cancel faster than last quarter, a supply chain slows down. Someone has to find the numbers, check that they are right and show them in a way a busy manager can read in a minute.

BLS does not publish a separate page for business intelligence analysts. It counts them with data scientists, so we use that group for pay and outlook. Treat the figures on this page as covering that wider group, which also includes people who build predictive models.

BLS lists these duties for the group:

• Determine which data are available and useful for a project.
• Collect, categorize and analyze data.
• Create, validate, test and update algorithms and models.
• Use data visualization software to present findings.
• Make business recommendations to stakeholders based on the analysis.

The balance differs by employer. A business intelligence analyst usually spends more of the week on the first, second, fourth and fifth items, and less on building new models. That is our reading of the duty list, not a BLS statement, so check each posting.

What Does a Typical Week Look Like?

Expect a mix of detective work, building and talking. Here is how it often splits.

Pulling and cleaning data. You ask a database for the records you need, then fix what is wrong with them. Duplicate customers, missing dates and mismatched product codes are normal. This is the least glamorous part, and it decides whether your charts can be trusted.

Building reports and dashboards. You set up views that update on their own, so a sales director can check numbers without emailing you. Tableau and Power BI are well-known examples of the data visualization software BLS refers to.

Answering one-off questions. A manager wants to know why returns rose in March. You dig, find a pattern and write up what you found.

Presenting. You walk a team through a chart and explain what it means, what it does not mean and what you would do next. Plain speaking matters here as much as skill with a tool.

The downside is that the work can feel like a service desk. People bring you urgent questions, and your own projects wait. Good analysts learn to push back, ask what decision a request supports and say no to reports no one reads.

Which Degree Do Employers Expect?

BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry-level education for this occupation group and says graduate school is not required. That is the honest baseline. A business intelligence role is open to graduates in business, statistics, information systems, economics, computer science and plenty of other fields.

So why look at AI degrees at all? Because the work is moving toward predictions, automated insights and questions asked in plain language. An analyst who can build a forecast or judge whether an AI tool’s answer is sound has more to offer than one who only builds charts. That is a reasonable expectation, not something BLS measures.

BLS does not publish wages by degree for this group. Use the degree to fill a skills gap or to change fields, and do not expect a guaranteed raise.

Which Online AI Degree Level Fits?

The right level depends on where you start.

Bachelor’s Degrees for Starting Out

If you have no degree, a bachelor’s is the level BLS names. Arizona State University Digital Immersion offers an online Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence in Business with two capstone courses where students build AI solutions for real problems. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville offers an online Bachelor of Science in Applied Artificial Intelligence at $67,800 for 120 credits. Our online bachelor’s ranking lists the rest.

Master’s Degrees for Career Changers and Movers

This is the level where AI for business programs cluster. If you already have a bachelor’s in any field, a master’s can add the AI and analytics skills.

• Saint Louis University’s Applied AI and Decision Analytics costs $24,300 for 30 credits and does not require a prior STEM degree. Its capstone deploys and validates a real-world AI application.
• Boston University’s Online MS in AI in Business costs $25,000 for 32 credits and requires no coding background.
• Oregon State University’s Business Analytics and Applied AI costs $43,425 for 45 credits, and a graduate certificate in business analytics stacks into it.
• The University of Arizona’s AI for Business costs $37,500 and has an entry test covering statistics, Python and SQL.
• The University of Cincinnati’s AI Management costs $34,800, is asynchronous, and does not require the GRE.

Browse the full AI for business ranking and the applied AI ranking to compare format, price and admission rules.

Certificates for a Faster, Cheaper Start

If you already work with data and want an AI layer, a graduate certificate is cheaper and shorter. The University of Rochester’s Graduate Certificate in AI in Business is listed at $7,500. Penn State World Campus’s certificate in AI for Business and Innovation is $9,801 for 9 credits. See the certificate ranking for more.

One thing to check: certificate students at Penn State are nondegree and not eligible for federal student aid. Ask each school about aid before you commit.

Which Programs Suit People Who Already Have Jobs?

Most readers of this page work. If that is you, start with format. Cincinnati’s master’s is asynchronous, so you can log in around your schedule. Boston University’s mixes asynchronous and live sessions. Montclair State’s online business analytics and AI master’s includes a 3 to 5 day domestic trip to see how organizations use analytics, so it is not fully remote.

Our working adults ranking sorts programs built around a job, with asynchronous classes, short terms or part-time pacing. Our career changer ranking covers programs open to applicants from other fields.

What Skills and Tools Do You Need?

Start with the ones every posting for this job will ask about in some form.

• Database queries. SQL is the standard way to pull data. The University of Arizona’s entry test covers statistics, Python and SQL, which shows how much a business-focused program expects.
• Statistics. You need to know when a trend is real and when it is noise. Montclair State asks admitted students to finish a 25 to 30 hour online statistics foundation module before starting.
• Visualization. Choosing the right chart matters more than choosing a fancy one.
• Spreadsheets. They remain a daily tool, and they are where many analysts start.
• A scripting language. Python is the common choice for cleaning and modeling data.
• Plain communication. Say what the number means in one sentence.

Add AI skills on top. Course lists from programs on our list include Generative AI for Business, Data Mining and Machine Learning, Governance of AI/ML Systems and Ethical, Evidence-Based Decision Making. Those names give you a feel for what business-focused programs teach.

How Do You Get Hired as a Business Intelligence Analyst?

Here is a path that works for most people.

1. Decide where you are starting. No degree: plan on a bachelor’s, since that is what BLS names as typical. A degree in another field: you can apply to analyst jobs now and add a master’s or certificate while you work.
2. Learn SQL and basic statistics. These two skills open more doors than any single tool.
3. Learn one visualization tool well. Pick Tableau or Power BI and build with it.
4. Build three small projects. Take public data, ask a real question, build a dashboard and write a short note on what it shows. Hiring managers read these.
5. Choose an AI program if it fits. If your goal is forecasting and machine learning, compare programs on our AI for business ranking.
6. Search by several titles. Business intelligence analyst is one title. Reporting analyst, data analyst and analytics specialist are near neighbors, and employers use them differently.
7. Practice explaining a chart. Interviews often ask you to walk through a dataset and say what you would tell a manager.

The honest downside: entry-level analyst postings can attract many applicants. Projects and a clear story about the business problems you solved are your best way to stand out from a pile of resumes.

What Does the Job Pay?

BLS reports pay for the group that includes business intelligence analysts. The May 2025 national figures:

• 10th percentile: $67,240.
• 25th percentile: $85,660.
• Median: $120,230, or $57.80 an hour.
• Mean: $126,800.
• 75th percentile: $158,880.
• 90th percentile: $199,130.

In May 2025, BLS counted 262,440 jobs in the group. The highest annual mean wages were in Washington at $158,040, California at $156,000, Maryland at $144,080, the District of Columbia at $142,580 and New Jersey at $138,590.

Where the jobs are is a different list. California has the most, 39,310, followed by Texas with 25,860, New York with 23,970, Pennsylvania with 13,810 and North Carolina with 11,430. Our business intelligence analyst salary page has the full state breakdown.

How Fast Is the Field Growing?

BLS projects 35 percent growth for the group from 2025 to 2035, which it calls much faster than the average. That is about 95,400 more jobs on a base of 275,600 in 2025, with about 24,800 openings a year.

Openings include people replacing workers who leave, not only new jobs. Projections are estimates and BLS revises them. They tell you the direction, not whether a given employer will hire you.

Can You Do This Job Remotely?

Often, though it depends on the employer. The work happens on data you can reach from anywhere, so remote and hybrid postings exist. BLS does not track how many jobs are remote, so we cannot give you a number.

Two practical points. First, some analysts handle sensitive company data, and employers may ask you to work on site or from approved devices. Second, a remote analyst has to communicate clearly in writing and on video, because most of the value is in explaining the numbers. Read the posting for the exact rule.

Does an Online Degree Count With Employers?

Employers differ, and no federal data tells us how they weigh online degrees, so check a school’s accreditation before you enroll. Each of our program pages shows the details we verified, including whether any in-person visits are required.

What matters most is what you can show. A capstone that deploys a real AI application, like the one in Saint Louis University’s program, gives you something concrete to talk about. Oregon State’s hands-on projects with industry partners do the same.

Is an AI Degree Worth It for This Career?

It depends on your starting point and your goal. Our guide to whether an AI degree is worth it goes through the trade-offs in detail. Short version for this job: if you already hold a bachelor’s and are an analyst, a certificate is the low-cost test.

If you are switching from another field, a master’s built for career changers can make the move smoother. If you do not need new AI skills yet, a cheaper path of SQL, statistics and projects may be enough.

If coding worries you, see our guide to an AI degree without coding. For the wider set of roles, our artificial intelligence careers page covers research scientists, software developers and data scientists side by side.