Occupation / job
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
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
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists pays $78,760 at the midpoint, 57% above the $50,020 national figure. Premiums that size are rationed by something; find out what before the salary does your thinking for you.
At 899,580 workers, Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists is one of the largest occupations in the country. Jobs at this scale are the labour market’s floor — always hiring, rarely bidding, and first to absorb people leaving somewhere else.
Business operations work suits people who make a process legible to everyone who touches it — the deliverable is usually a decision someone else can now make quickly.
We carry no verified training length for Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of the field earns under $58,350 and a quarter over $108,310: $49,960 between them, a ratio of 1.9x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.
The bottom quarter of Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists earns $58,350 or more — $8,330 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Three quarters of the field is well paid and the last quarter is still paid better than most of the country.
Avoid it if you need authority to match responsibility — much of this work is influencing people who do not report to you.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 899,580 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 1.9x — $58,350 to $108,310 — is wide enough that specialising inside Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists pays measurably. $78,760 is the middle of a range you can move within.
The middle half of this field earns between $58,350 and $108,310. That is $49,960 of range, with $78,760 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $108,310. Reaching it from the $78,760 midpoint is $29,550 a year; reaching it from the $58,350 that the bottom quarter of Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists earn is $49,960.
The climb from $78,760 to $108,310 is $29,550, against $20,410 down to $58,350. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists is larger than the realistic downside.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $28.05 at the bottom quarter, $37.86 at the midpoint, $52.07 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
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists. The self-employed are excluded, so $78,760 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists, the hourly figure is $78,760 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else