Occupation / job
Budget Analysts
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
At $91,640 against a $50,020 national midpoint, Budget Analysts pays 83% more than the typical American job — $41,620 a year of difference. Read the entry requirements before the number.
47,160 people are employed in this work. Big enough for a real market in every major metro, small enough that experience in Budget Analysts is still a distinguishing thing to have.
Financial specialist work suits people who are precise about other people’s money and unbothered that the calendar, not the workload, decides when the pressure arrives.
We carry no verified training length for Budget Analysts — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $75,320 and a quarter above $114,220: a 1.5x ratio, $38,900 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
Even at the 25th percentile Budget Analysts pays $75,320, $25,300 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
Avoid it if you would find it hard to deliver an unwelcome finding to the person who commissioned the work.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 47,160 people employed as Budget Analysts; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
At 1.5x between $75,320 and $114,220 this is a normally shaped occupation. $91,640 is what the middle of Budget Analysts earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
Put in money rather than ratios: $75,320 at the 25th percentile, $91,640 at the midpoint, $114,220 at the 75th. $38,900 separates the quarter of Budget Analysts at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $114,220. Reaching it from the $91,640 midpoint is $22,580 a year; reaching it from the $75,320 that the bottom quarter of Budget Analysts earn is $38,900.
$22,580 separates $91,640 from the $114,220 top quarter, while only $16,320 separates it from $75,320. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Budget Analysts has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $36.21 at the bottom quarter, $44.05 at the midpoint, $54.91 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $91,640 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
The hourly number on this page is $91,640 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Budget Analysts, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else