What Kinds of Jobs Can I Get with a Master’s in Business Analytics?
A good manager makes good decisions. And to make good decisions, you need good data. This is especially true as enterprises grow larger and deal with complex business environments. In the age of information, companies have a team of business data analytics employees who are responsible for processing and analyzing data, and effectively communicating the results.
With the Master of Science in Business Analytics program at the Eller, you will have the opportunity to acquire skills in data management, data mining, machine learning, statistical analysis and effective communication. You will combine these critical skills with your creativity and mindset of problem-solving to be successful in your field!
Why an MSBA at Eller?
The data speaks for itself. We are a top-ranked program and our graduating students enjoy a 100 percent placement rate. Some of our recent employers include Amazon, Walmart, EY (Ernst & Young), KPMG, HP, Discover, Ameriprise, DHL, Carvana, etc.
The MSBA is unique in that we combine advanced analytics training with real-world applications for data-driven decision making. As part of the curriculum, you will get the opportunity to work on a live consulting project for a partner company to solve business problems. You are taught by some of the best faculty in the world who are involved in cutting- edge research—our MIS department has raised over $200M in research funding. The expertise they bring to the classroom is well beyond what you will find in textbooks. Students can choose between two curriculum paths: a 10-month intensive training program or a 16-month plan that includes an internship option.
For International Students we have a STEM designation, which offers a three-year post program extended OPT.
The Job Market
Job roles in this area include data scientists, data engineers, analytics managers, predictive modeling analysts, business intelligence engineers, and similar positions. These jobs are frequently ranked by employees as among the best over the past decade.
While the median salaries for employees with a bachelor’s degree are in the range of $100K+ per year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an employee with a master’s degree can expect an average salary of about $140K+. Further, according to the BLS, the field is projected to grow at a rate of 36 percent from 2021 to 2031—well over the projected growth rate for most occupations. This means job security for you as well as opportunities for future growth.
You will need to provide either a GMAT or GRE score. We also require at least a 3.0 undergraduate GPA (on a 4.0 GPA scale). While our admissions requirements may appear to be more rigorous than those of the average university, it ensures the classmates you learn from and future network you develop are among the best in the country.
What kinds of jobs can I get with my MSBA degree?
A variety of roles are available to you with an MSBA degree from Eller. We list some opportunities below.
In addition to these roles, there are more senior level roles that place you in a position of leadership within the organization. As your responsibilities increase (e.g., for managing teams, setting strategic directions for data analysis within your organization, working with top management), so do the expectations for experience required, and the compensation you receive.
Business Data Analyst: A business data analyst is responsible for analyzing and interpreting data to help businesses make informed decisions. As a data analyst you may manage tasks related to data collection, analysis and presentation. You may also be required to work with users to understand their needs before engaging in the data collection and analysis efforts. Data collection will include the gathering and organizing of data from multiple sources, pre-processing the data to maintain data quality and data standardization, and merging and linking the data. As part of the analysis roles, you may be involved in both descriptive and predictive analytics. You will also play a part in communicating these results to organizational stakeholders. Overall, the role of a Business Data Analyst is to use data to help businesses make better decisions and improve their performance.
With a graduate degree and experience, business data analysts can expect to make $100K on average.
Business Intelligence (BI) Developer: As a BI developer, you will be designing and developing reports, dashboards and other tools to help businesses improve their decision-making. You may also be involved in collecting and organizing data for reporting, and visualizing and analyzing business-related data. BI specialists will often develop and maintain reports for managers and other users across business units. This will require both technical skills and being able to work with users to understand and communicate requirements and results. You may also need expertise in vendor-specific reporting tools (e.g., Oracle OBIEE or Microsoft SSRS) and familiarity with visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI and QlikView. Thorough knowledge of query-writing (SQL) and reporting is essential. Depending on the organization, you may also be involved in data modeling and designing and developing data marts (or similar repositories such as data warehouses or data lakes). A BI developer may need create data models, design and develop reports, dashboards, and other analytical tools to help businesses make informed decisions.
Average salaries for experienced professionals in this role are about $110K.
Data Engineer: To perform quality analysis, we assume data is readily available. Data engineers make sure the databases and warehouses are in place for the analysts. Data Engineers will design, build and maintain the systems required for managing and processing enterprise data. They work closely with data analysts, data scientists, other developers and managers to ensure that data is properly collected, stored and made available when needed in a scalable fashion. You may be involved in designing new databases, warehouses, or data lakes. For organizations that have existing data repositories, you may be involved in the ETL (extract, transform, load) processes or in scalability and performance tuning for the data platforms. You will be expected to be proficient in SQL, design tools, and data integration platforms.
The average salary is about $110K per year.
Data Science Analyst: A data science analyst is responsible for creating and testing machine learning or statistical models to predict future outcomes based on past data. You will develop models to identify patterns and trends in data, which in turn can (for example) be used to understand, classify or forecast future (or unseen) data, and inform decision-making. In this role, you will often be responsible for data pre-processing (e.g., extraction, cleaning, transforming) and model generation using the appropriate data mining or statistical techniques. In addition to testing your models, you will need to communicate the results (often to non-technical users) in a simple and understandable manner.
The average salary for a data science analyst is about $105K.
Data Visualization Analyst: Since the human brain is exceptionally skilled at grasping visual patterns, the old saying holds—a picture is worth a thousand words. Managers frequently use dashboards and visualizations for performance tracking and to aid in decision-making. The job of a data visualization analyst is to create meaningful representations that summarize large amounts of data, display trends and identify patterns. A visualization expert will be knowledgeable in the business domain, experienced in extracting and processing data from heterogenous sources, proficient in programming languages and visualization platforms, comfortable with multiple visualization tools, and an effective communicator. You will need to know the right tool or software for the job whether it’s Excel, Python, R, SPSS, SQL or a visualization platform such as PowerBI, Qlik or Tableau.
The average salary for this role is estimated at $78K.
