The latest federal wage data put the national median for market research analysts and marketing specialists at $37.87 an hour in May 2025. Annualized at 2,080 hours, that is about $78,770 in wages before employer taxes, benefits, equipment, recruiting, or management time.
That number is a useful starting point for founders. It is not a quote for every person who works on a marketing dashboard. The Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation covers analysts and marketing specialists who research markets, study competitors, measure marketing performance, analyze data, and report findings. A small company may need all of that, or it may need a narrower operating layer that keeps reporting and recurring analysis current.
The 2025 national wage benchmark
The BLS May 2025 national table, released May 15, 2026, reports 899,580 U.S. jobs in the market research analysts and marketing specialists occupation, SOC 13-1161.
The same table reports:
- $37.87 median hourly wage
- $43.03 mean hourly wage
- $89,490 mean annual wage
The $78,770 median annualized figure below is $37.87 multiplied by 2,080 hours. BLS publishes the median as an hourly figure in this release, so the annual value is our conversion, rounded to the nearest $10.
| Cost or capacity measure | 2025 benchmark | Monthly equivalent | What it tells a founder |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median wage | $37.87 per hour | $6,564 | Annualized wage is about $78,770 at 2,080 hours |
| Mean wage | $43.03 per hour | $7,458 | BLS reports $89,490 as the mean annual wage |
| National employment | 899,580 jobs | Not applicable | This is a broad, established occupation rather than a niche job title |
| In-house analyst capacity | Full-time role | Full-time payroll commitment | Suitable when research, interpretation, and stakeholder reporting fill a durable role |
| Delegated analytics operations | Scope-based capacity | Varies by hours and scope | Suitable when the recurring need is data upkeep, report production, QA, and escalation |
Monthly equivalents divide the annualized wage by 12 and exclude all non-wage employment costs. The last two rows are operating-model comparisons, not BLS price estimates.
Why the salary figure is not the full hiring cost
A wage benchmark answers what workers earn. It does not calculate what an employer spends to maintain the role.
An in-house budget may also include payroll taxes, health and retirement benefits, paid leave, recruiting, software, equipment, and manager time. Those costs vary too much by company and location to add a universal markup here. Founders should model them with their own payroll and benefits data instead of treating the BLS wage as an all-in quote.
There is a capacity question too. A full-time analyst makes sense when the business can sustain a pipeline of research, measurement design, interpretation, and communication work. If the actual backlog is a weekly dashboard refresh, campaign tagging checks, CRM exports, and a short exception report, the company may be trying to solve a part-time operations problem with a full-time research role.
What BLS includes in the occupation
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook profile, last modified August 28, 2025, describes the work as studying consumer preferences and business conditions to assess potential sales.
Typical duties include monitoring marketing and sales trends, measuring program effectiveness, gathering market data, analyzing data with statistical software, and presenting findings. BLS says a bachelor's degree is the typical entry-level education. Some employers require or prefer a master's degree.
That scope is broader than routine report administration. It combines research design and interpretation with production work. A founder comparing options should separate those two layers:
- Analyst judgment covers research questions, measurement choices, statistical interpretation, forecasts, and recommendations.
- Analytics operations covers data pulls, dashboard refreshes, naming checks, campaign QA, report formatting, and routing anomalies to the right decision-maker.
The company may need both. It does not always need both for the same number of hours.
How the 2025 figure relates to the OOH benchmark
The Occupational Outlook Handbook page lists a $76,950 median annual wage for May 2024. It also projects 7 percent employment growth from 2024 to 2034 and about 87,200 openings per year on average over that period.
Those figures remain useful for occupation context, but they are not the latest wage year. The May 2025 OEWS release is newer and puts the median hourly wage at $37.87, or about $78,770 when annualized. That annualized figure is about $1,820 higher than the OOH's May 2024 median, a difference of roughly 2.4 percent.
This comparison does not measure the raise received by an individual worker. OEWS estimates describe the occupation at two different points in time.
When an in-house analyst is the better fit
An in-house analyst is easier to justify when the company has recurring questions that require independent judgment. Examples include market sizing, experiment design, pricing research, customer segmentation, forecasting, or regular interpretation for several teams.
The role also needs enough internal access and stakeholder time to do that work well. If leaders want an analyst to influence decisions, they must make the business context, data definitions, and decision cadence available.
Hiring the role only to repair spreadsheets or copy numbers into slides wastes specialist capacity. Those tasks still matter, but they should run through a documented reporting process.
When delegated analytics operations can work
Delegated support is a reasonable option when the measurement logic already exists and the bottleneck is consistent execution. A trained operator can maintain source connections, refresh recurring reports, check naming and tracking conventions, document anomalies, and prepare a decision-ready summary.
This model needs boundaries. The operator should not invent attribution rules, make unsupported strategic claims, or silently change KPI definitions. A named internal owner should approve measurement logic and handle exceptions that call for commercial judgment.
Our marketing VA cost benchmarks explain the broader scope and onboarding factors. The marketing VA cost guide helps turn the work into a practical brief. For a service-level view, see marketing analytics VA support.
A simple capacity test
Before choosing a staffing model, list the work completed during the last four reporting cycles. Mark each item as analysis or operations.
Analysis includes deciding what to measure, choosing a method, interpreting ambiguous results, and recommending action. Operations includes gathering inputs, maintaining dashboards, checking data hygiene, formatting reports, and following an approved escalation rule.
If the analysis column can support a durable full-time role, use the BLS wage as the beginning of an in-house budget. If recurring operations dominate and the judgment layer stays with a founder or marketing lead, price the defined operating scope instead.
Do not compare a full-time national wage with a delegated monthly quote until the expected hours, responsibilities, and decision rights match. A lower quote may cover less work. A full-time salary may buy capacity that the business cannot yet use.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 2025 U.S. median wage for a marketing analyst?
BLS reports a $37.87 median hourly wage in May 2025 for market research analysts and marketing specialists. At 2,080 hours, that is about $78,770 per year. The annual number is a conversion, not a separately published BLS median.
What is the 2025 average marketing analyst salary?
BLS reports a $43.03 mean hourly wage and an $89,490 mean annual wage for the occupation. Mean and median answer different questions, so founders should not use the terms interchangeably.
Does the benchmark include benefits and payroll costs?
No. OEWS wage estimates describe employee wages. An employer budget may also include payroll taxes, benefits, paid leave, recruiting, equipment, software, and management.
Is a marketing analyst the same as a marketing analytics VA?
No. The BLS occupation includes market research, data analysis, interpretation, forecasting, and reporting. A marketing analytics VA usually owns a narrower operating scope under approved definitions and escalation rules.
Should a small business hire in-house or delegate the work?
Hire in-house when independent analysis and interpretation can fill a durable role. Delegation can fit when the main need is recurring report production, data QA, documentation, and exception handling. The work inventory should decide the model.
Related research
If reporting work keeps slipping but the company does not need a full-time analyst yet, define the recurring operating scope first. BusinessGrowthAssistant can help turn that scope into a managed analytics routine without replacing the internal owner who makes the decisions.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Table 1: National employment and wage data by occupation, May 2025. Released May 15, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Market Research Analysts. Last modified August 28, 2025.