How much should a data professional earn?

The playbook for raising your income

You’ve learned the tools, shipped some projects, and are polishing your skills. After about 6–8 months, you may want to update your headline to reflect your new role: data analyst, data scientist, BI analyst, or Data engineer.

Next, the question hits: “How much should I be making?”

You have probably researched it on Google or seen it on LinkedIn. It’s a fair question.

You didn’t choose a career in data purely for the love of dashboards. You want to do meaningful work and be paid well.

There is no single number. The number Google or ChatGPT shows you is a baseline for how you should think about “rate”. Recruiters will post a company hiring for skills and experience at $150/hr, but list it at $45.

That’s the job market in 2025.

A junior data analyst in a small town, working for a local nonprofit, won’t earn what a junior analytics engineer in a Silicon Valley startup does. They may have the same job title and work in the same company, but i…