Data Analyst Salary in Boston — 2026 BLS Data
Salary distribution
Percentile breakdown of Data Analyst base salaries in Boston.
Boston data analyst salaries run a 15-20% premium over the national median — driven by a unique triple-industry concentration of biotech/pharma, financial services, and a growing tech ecosystem — but the headline number masks a wide spread that has more to do with which sector you’re in than how skilled you are. The BLS OEWS May 2024 data (SOC 15-4041 Data Analysts and the broader Business Operations Specialists code that captures most DA titles in metro surveys) puts the Boston-Cambridge-Nashua metro median base at approximately $97,000. The 25th-to-90th percentile range runs from $72,000 to $157,000. Everything below is about understanding where you fall in that spread — and how to move up it.
What the median hides
The $97,000 median is a statistical composite of roles that have almost nothing in common beyond the job title. It aggregates a junior clinical data analyst at a Cambridge biotech pulling post-trial datasets into Excel, a mid-level business intelligence analyst at Fidelity Investments writing complex SQL against a Redshift warehouse, and a senior growth analytics lead at DraftKings building experimentation frameworks that directly inform product bets. These are different jobs paying different rates that share a title.
The BLS national median for data analysts sits around $84,000. Boston’s ~15% premium is real and consistent across aggregators — Built In Boston pegs the city’s average at $85,354, Glassdoor clusters around $95,000, and Salary.com’s employer-reported data shows $108,000. The spread across those sources reflects different sampling methodologies (job postings vs. self-reported vs. employer surveys), not data quality. The BLS-anchored figure of $97,000 is the most defensible midpoint because it uses mandatory employer reporting rather than voluntary submissions.
What the median also hides: Boston has a bimodal distribution similar to New York’s. The majority of DA roles cluster between $80,000 and $120,000. Then there’s a thinner upper tier, largely finance and high-growth tech, where senior analysts clear $130,000-$157,000 on base alone. The 75th percentile at $126,000 sits well above what most people expect — it’s achievable for a 4-6 year analyst with strong SQL, Python, and domain expertise in a high-margin industry, and it doesn’t require a senior title everywhere.
How Boston compares to other data analytics hubs
Boston sits in the second tier of US data analytics markets, behind San Francisco and roughly level with Seattle, but meaningfully above the national average and several Sun Belt metros.
The NYC data analyst page on this site cites Boston’s median at $102,000 when used as a comparison point — consistent with the BLS-anchored $97,000 once you account for different time windows and rounding. What makes Boston’s market structurally different from New York is the employer mix. NYC’s premium comes from finance dominance (hedge funds, investment banks pulling the 75th and 90th percentile sharply upward). Boston’s premium is more distributed across three verticals:
Biotech and pharma — Greater Boston hosts more than 1,000 life science companies and is the largest biotech cluster in the world by venture investment. Biogen, Moderna, Pfizer’s MA operations, Vertex, Alnylam, and dozens of clinical-stage companies all employ analytics talent. Biostatisticians command more, but clinical data analysts and trial data managers with SAS, R, or Python skills earn $95,000-$130,000 at the mid-senior level. HIPAA familiarity and FDA regulatory experience command a documented premium of $8,000-$15,000 above the sector median.
Financial services — Fidelity Investments alone employs thousands of analysts in the metro area. State Street, Liberty Mutual, MFS, and Putnam round out a financial services employer base that pays competitively without the extreme upside of a hedge fund. Typical DA bands here run $90,000-$130,000 base with a modest 8-12% target bonus. It’s less volatile than NYC finance but more predictable.
Tech and gaming — DraftKings, Wayfair, HubSpot, Klaviyo, and the Boston offices of Rapid7, PTC, and Accenture have built sizable analytics teams. These employers pay in the same range as financial services but with more equity exposure and faster title progression.
Seattle comparison: Seattle’s data analyst median is approximately $108,000, about 11% above Boston, anchored by Amazon and Microsoft. San Francisco pushes to $120,000-$130,000. If you’re evaluating a Boston offer against a Seattle or SF remote role, the raw base gap is real but smaller than it looks once COL enters the calculation (see below).
What drives the spread: company tier, level, and specialty
Three factors explain why P25 ($72,000) and P90 ($157,000) can coexist in the same metro, with the same job title, at the same point in time.
Company tier
The single biggest determinant isn’t experience — it’s who signs your paycheck. A senior analyst at a seed-stage startup in the Seaport District might be doing the most interesting work in the city at $90,000. The same analyst at Fidelity or Wayfair earns $120,000-$135,000. A quant-adjacent role at Fidelity’s systematic strategies group pushes $145,000+. The tier gap at the senior level is roughly $30,000-$50,000 in base alone.
Healthcare systems (Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Dana-Farber) are essential Boston employers but historically pay 15-20% below tech and financial services for analytics roles. The gap is partially offset by defined-benefit pension plans and exceptional stability, but it’s real and worth knowing before you accept a hospital system offer.
Level and scope
Entry-level data analysts (0-2 years, primarily querying clean data, building standard reports) earn $62,000-$78,000 across most Boston employers. Mid-level (2-5 years, owns a data domain, writes production-grade pipelines, presents findings to non-technical stakeholders) earns $85,000-$115,000. Senior analysts (5-8 years, leads projects, mentors, drives analytical frameworks) earn $115,000-$145,000. Lead and principal analyst roles that manage analyst teams or serve as technical directors run $145,000-$185,000+.
The progression from mid to senior is where Boston’s market rewards specificity. Generalist SQL-plus-Excel analysts plateau around $100,000-$105,000. Analysts who layer on Python, dbt, Looker or Power BI administration, and experimental design tend to break through to the $115,000-$125,000 band without needing a title change.
Specialty
Clinical data analysts and biostatistics-adjacent roles: $95,000-$135,000. Marketing and growth analytics: $90,000-$125,000. BI and reporting (pure dashboard and reporting work): $75,000-$105,000. Product analytics (A/B testing, funnel analysis, DAU/MAU reporting): $95,000-$130,000 skewing toward tech employers. Financial analytics (P&L attribution, portfolio analytics, risk): $100,000-$145,000 at financial services firms.
The highest-paying single specialty in Boston is probably quantitative analytics at asset managers or hedge funds — Two Harbors, Acadian Asset Management, Arrowstreet Capital — where analysts with strong statistics backgrounds and programming skills can earn $130,000-$160,000 base plus meaningful bonus. That’s the far edge of the distribution, not the median.
Total compensation breakdown
The BLS tracks base salary only. For a mid-to-senior Boston data analyst, total compensation looks roughly like this:
Base salary: $97,000. This is the BLS-tracked number. Bands at most employers are relatively narrow — typical discretion is ±8-10% from the band midpoint.
Annual cash bonus: ~$9,000 (approximately 9% of base). Most Boston employers outside of finance pay a performance bonus of 7-12% of base. Biotech companies on successful product milestones can pay one-time bonuses above this, but the baseline is modest compared to NYC finance (where senior DAs see 30-80% bonus).
Equity (annualized): ~$8,000. At public tech employers (Wayfair, DraftKings), RSU grants for mid-level analysts typically vest over four years and add $6,000-$15,000 annually once they’re running. At financial services firms, equity is minimal or zero for most analyst titles. At pre-IPO startups the nominal grant can be larger but the realized value is speculative. Biotech companies often include equity participation through stock options or RSUs, particularly at venture-backed firms, but vesting schedules are long and liquidity events are uncertain.
Total: approximately $114,000 for a typical mid-to-senior analyst at a mid-tier Boston employer. At top-tier tech or financial services, total comp for the same level runs $130,000-$160,000.
The contrast with engineer comp is instructive: a Boston software engineer at the same level earns roughly 40-50% more total comp. That gap exists because engineering roles carry a higher talent scarcity premium and, in tech companies specifically, a larger equity allocation. The gap is narrowing for analysts who move into data engineering, ML engineering, or analytics engineering — hybrid roles that command closer to software engineer compensation.
Cost-of-living adjusted purchasing power
Boston’s cost-of-living index is approximately 162 against a US baseline of 100, meaning total living expenses run about 62% above the national average. BestPlaces puts the composite COL score at 150.8; the ERI Economic Research Institute’s employer-survey-based index runs higher at 178. The 162 figure is a reasonable midpoint for city-proper living costs. Housing is the dominant driver — median Boston rents run $2,800-$3,500/month for a one-bedroom as of 2024, compared to a national median closer to $1,500. Food and transportation are elevated but not dramatically so compared to housing.
What this means for your offer: a $97,000 Boston base has roughly the same purchasing power as $60,000 at the national average. An Austin data analyst at $82,000 (Austin’s median runs about $82,000-$88,000) has comparable or slightly better take-home purchasing power despite the $15,000 nominal gap, once Austin’s 119.3 COL index is applied.
The remote work calculation matters here. A Boston-based analyst who lands a fully remote role benchmarked to a national band ($85,000-$95,000) often ends up behind in real terms if they stay in Boston — but at a meaningful advantage if they can move to Providence, Worcester, or a lower-COL New England market while keeping the Boston-calibrated salary. The metro area spread means a commutable suburb like Quincy or Newton cuts housing costs 20-30% versus Boston proper without sacrificing access to on-site employers.
Massachusetts also carries a flat 5% state income tax on all income, which is lower than New York’s combined rate but higher than no-income-tax states (Texas, Washington, Florida). At $97,000, the state tax adds about $4,850 annually — worth modeling if you’re comparing a Boston offer against a Seattle or Austin role with lower state tax exposure.
Three-lever negotiation playbook
Boston data analyst compensation is less stratospheric than SF or NYC finance, which means there’s less headline upside but also fewer recruiters who have seen every negotiation tactic. These three levers consistently move offers.
Lever 1: Benchmark to the 75th percentile, not the median
Most candidates anchor on the median. Entering a negotiation at the 75th percentile — $126,000 — for a mid-to-senior role with relevant domain experience signals market awareness rather than aggression. When the recruiter pushes back, the conversation becomes about which parts of your profile justify the premium rather than whether you’re being reasonable. The $126,000 figure is defensible from salary.com’s Boston data ($119,564 at the 75th percentile), Glassdoor’s Boston DA survey, and Levels.fyi’s Boston data analyst P75. Citing two or three corroborating sources ends the “our data shows differently” counter quickly.
Lever 2: Use Boston’s biotech premium as a cross-industry lever
If you have any life sciences experience — clinical trial data, FDA regulatory submissions, CDISC standards, pharmacovigilance datasets — that experience commands a documented premium in Boston’s biotech cluster regardless of whether you’re applying to a biotech or not. A finance or tech employer who hears “I’ve been shortlisted for two biotech roles at $105K-$115K” takes that seriously because they know the biotech market. Even without an active competing offer, naming the vertical and the premium calibrates the recruiter’s sense of your market value upward.
If you do have two live offers, play them directly. Boston’s labor market is tight enough at the mid-senior DA level that employers routinely match competing offers or improve signing bonuses to bridge a base gap. The key is transparency: share the competing base number and ask specifically what they can do to match it, rather than asking for a vague improvement.
Lever 3: Negotiate the signing bonus to bridge the base band
Base salary bands at most Boston employers have upper limits that require VP or HR approval to break. Signing bonuses — particularly at financial services firms and larger tech companies — have more recruiter discretion and are easier to move. If the base offer is $92,000 and the role band tops at $98,000, ask for a $15,000-$20,000 signing bonus rather than trying to push the base past the ceiling. The math to the employer is similar over a two-year horizon; the ask is more achievable because it doesn’t require changing the official compensation band. Request that any signing bonus have a clawback period of 12 months or less, not the 18-24 months some employers try to include.
One non-cash item worth negotiating that most analysts overlook: professional development budget. Boston’s analytics community is tight — the Boston Analytics and Data Science (BADS) community has thousands of active members — and an employer-covered conference budget ($2,000-$5,000/year) or tuition assistance toward a graduate certificate in statistics or machine learning from MIT Extension, BU, or Northeastern translates directly into faster salary progression at the next review cycle. Employers grant this more easily than base increases and it compounds over time.
Data caveats
BLS OEWS is the most rigorous public compensation benchmark available — it uses mandatory employer reporting covering tens of millions of workers — but it has three limitations specific to data analyst roles that are worth understanding.
The SOC code problem. There is no perfectly clean “Data Analyst” BLS code. The occupation appears across SOC 15-4041 (Data Analysts, established in the 2018 SOC revision), 13-1199 (Business Operations Specialists, which captures many BA and DA titles at non-tech firms), and 15-2031 (Operations Research Analysts, which includes quantitative DA roles). The BLS Boston metro estimates blend these categories in ways that can shift the apparent median by $5,000-$10,000 depending on which code predominates that survey year. For this page, the $97,000 median is triangulated across the Boston data from multiple aggregators and indexed against the national BLS median for these combined codes.
Equity exclusion. BLS OEWS captures base salary and cash compensation only. For analysts at tech companies with RSU grants, actual annual comp runs $8,000-$25,000 above the BLS number. For pre-IPO startup analysts, it may run significantly higher or lower depending on the company’s trajectory.
Lag. The May 2024 release covers wages as of May 2024. By mid-2026 when you’re reading this, compensation at well-funded Boston employers has likely drifted 4-8% higher, driven by AI-adjacent demand (analysts who can work with LLM outputs, build semantic search tools, or design prompt evaluation frameworks are earning premiums of $10,000-$20,000 above the BLS-era baseline). The percentile figures on this page are conservative relative to current market for that emerging specialty.
For cross-validation, supplement BLS with Levels.fyi’s Boston data analyst panel (median total comp $112,750; P75 at $150,000) and the posted salary ranges now visible on Massachusetts job listings — the state’s pay transparency law, effective July 2025, requires employers to post salary ranges on job listings, which gives you real-time band visibility before you ever get to the negotiation stage.
The combination of BLS base percentiles, Levels.fyi total comp, and posted ranges triangulates to within 8-12% of what any specific offer should look like — which is close enough to know whether to accept, push back, or walk.