How to hire a reporting analyst
for a small business (2026)

What a reporting analyst earns in 2026

Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 (released 2026-05-15); O*NET 31.0 (August 2026). National figures for Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists (SOC 13-1161), 899,580 employed. Last updated 2026-09-17.

Two notes on the number. First, this page leads with the market research group because that is the occupation a small business's reporting posting sits nearest: BLS puts marketing analysts, research analysts and marketing coordinators in that one occupation. O*NET, though, lists Reporting Analyst, Reports Analyst, Data Analyst and Business Data Analyst as titles under Data Scientists (SOC 15-2051), where the median is $120,230. So the two medians are $78,760 for the market research group and $120,230 for the data scientist group; which one a given posting resembles depends on whether the work is rebuilding a weekly report or building models, and the page gives you both rather than deciding for you. Second, the city moves it a long way. The six largest metros by employment in this occupation, with the median in each: New York $100,520; Los Angeles $82,990; Boston $102,390; Chicago $80,400; San Francisco $123,250; Washington $87,160. BLS expects about 82,000 openings a year for market research analysts over the decade to 2035, with the number of jobs growing about 7% (Occupational Outlook Handbook, read 2026-09-17).

What does a reporting analyst actually do all day?

O*NET's task lists for the two occupations, in plain words:

• Writes up what the numbers say, with charts, in sentences a manager can read.
• Finds out where the business stands against the others in its market.
• Gathers what customers think, and what they buy, and why.
• Sets up surveys and questionnaires, or finds data that already exists.
• Collects competitors' prices, sales and how they sell.
• Measures customer and employee satisfaction.
• Watches industry figures and the trade press.
• Measures whether the marketing worked.
• Forecasts and tracks sales trends.
• Produces the standard reports on schedule, and the one-off ones when asked.
• Keeps the dashboards and the spreadsheets behind them working and correct.
• Gets the numbers to the people who need them, on time.

For a small business, that means one thing above all: the Monday report arrives on Monday, and the numbers on it are right. The second thing is answering "what changed, and why?" without a week's delay. Research (a competitor teardown, a list of accounts worth calling) is the third.

What to look for in a reporting analyst

Someone who can open a messy export and find the error in it before you do. Fluency in Excel or Google Sheets is the floor; SQL and whichever dashboard tool you use (Power BI, Looker Studio, Tableau) is the ceiling. Ask how they check a number before it goes on a page. Ask them to explain a figure in your nouns (covers, bookings, tickets, units) rather than the tool's. Ask what they do when two systems disagree. The best answer to that last one is "say so, size the gap, and find the cause," never "pick the one that looks right."

How to write the posting

List the reports that must exist, who reads each, and on what day. Name the systems the numbers come from (the point of sale, the accounting file, the CRM, the booking system, the store) and the dashboard tool if you have one. Say what research you need this quarter. Say whether the analyst may change a live dashboard or must stage the change for a look first. Put the pay in the posting: the middle half of analysts earn $58,350 to $108,310, and a $25-an-hour posting annualizes near $52,000.

Five interview questions for a reporting analyst

1. "Here is last month's sales export. Rebuild the summary I already have and tell me if it matches." Give them a real file. A good candidate recomputes every figure, lists the ones that do not match with the size of the gap, and does not adjust anything to make it close.

2. "Our point of sale says $41,200 for the week and the accounting file says $39,800. What do you do?" A good answer names the likely causes (timing, refunds, tips, a missing day), checks each, and reports what did not close as not closed.

3. "Write me the one line you would send the owner about this chart." A good answer is one plain sentence in the business's own words with the number in it, not a paragraph about the chart.

4. "A client asks for the report early. Do you send it?" A good answer checks who is allowed to receive it and asks before anything leaves the company.

5. "Where did this competitor's price come from?" A good answer has a link, a date it was read, and a one-word confidence. A number with no source is a blank, not a guess.

How much does it cost to hire a reporting analyst?

An analyst's salary is about seven tenths of what they cost. In June 2026 wages and salaries were 70.0% of what private employers paid per hour worked and benefits the other 30.0%, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' count (Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, released 2026-09-09, read 2026-09-17). At that split, a $78,760 salary implies about $112,500 a year in total cost before recruiting and training. Freelancer and agency figures are not on this page because we could not read a current rate page today.

Allying's price for this job is 30% of the salary you post, billed monthly, with a floor of $1,200 a month. At $78,760 that is $1,969 a month; at $52,000 (a $25-an-hour posting) it is $1,300. A one-off piece of research with an end date can be priced as a project instead. The exact figure is in your proposal before you decide.

What should the first week produce?

Whoever you hire, ask for these by Friday:

• One report that answers a question from your own posting, with a source beside every figure.
• A research brief you can check: a competitor teardown or a list of fifty accounts, with a link on every claim.
• A method note a manager could follow, and a source log.
• A proposed calendar of the reports the job implies: which, for whom, what day, from which source.
• Your existing report rebuilt from a single export, with every number re-derived and the discrepancies listed.

If the first week produces a dashboard but no method note, nobody will be able to tell in month three whether the dashboard is right.

When not to hire a reporting analyst

If you have one system and it already produces the report you read, you need a better report template, not an analyst. If the real problem is that the data is not being entered, fix the entry first, because no analyst can recompute what was never recorded. And if the numbers you need are about a person rather than the business (a candidate, a tenant, a borrower), that is a different, regulated job, and this is not it.

How Allying does this job

Allying delivers the recurring reports on your calendar, weekly, monthly and quarterly, on time, rebuilt from the raw export with every number re-derived before it goes on a page. It keeps a metric dictionary (what each number means, which system it comes from, how it is computed) and a source log with a clickable receipt for every outside claim and a cell reference for every inside number. It writes the research briefs, competitor teardowns, market reads and target lists you or a manager ask for. Dashboard changes are staged as copies in your own tool and swapped in only after you have looked. It keeps a discrepancy list of what your systems disagree about, with the size of each gap and the likely cause, and a queue of the open questions, who asked, and the answer when it exists.

The first week, before any conversation with you:

• A report built from your public data that answers a question the posting asks, one page plus an appendix, every figure with a source.
• A research brief you can check.
• Method note and source log.
• The one-file offer: your existing report rebuilt within 48 hours of a single export arriving, under a short NDA, with a recompute log and the discrepancy list.
• Proposed report calendar.

The work is done with AI and overseen by a named specialist who answers for it.

Mae Santos, Allying's co-founder, is the person you talk to; write to hello@allying.com and she answers. The work is reviewed before it reaches you.

What Allying refuses on this job

• Putting a number on a page that it cannot recompute from a raw file or trace to a clickable source. A number with no source is a marked blank, never an estimate presented as a fact.
• Inventing, rounding away or smoothing a figure to make a report reconcile. A reconciliation that does not close is reported as not closed, and you or your bookkeeper resolve it.
• Writing to a system of record: the point of sale, accounting, CRM, booking system or store. Access is read-only or export-only, enforced by the credentials you issue; your staff write to those systems.
• Deleting or overwriting your files, sheets or dashboards. Changes are staged as copies and swapped only after your approval.
• Sending a report, list or brief to anyone outside the company on its own. You send it, or approve the send on a card.
• Paying for data, creating accounts on data vendors or accepting data terms on your behalf. You buy and accept terms.

Questions owners ask

Related pages

What this job costs with Allying, and the other ways of getting it done, with every figure sourced and dated.

• Pricing: the share of the posted salary, job by job
• Allying vs hiring an employee
• Allying vs a virtual assistant agency
• Allying vs freelancers
• Allying vs the tools
• Every hiring guide

Guides for owners

• What small businesses pay in 2026
• How to write a job posting that fills