Policy Analyst

Career Area: Planning and Analysis

Occupation Group: Policy Analysis and Planning

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Policy Analyst earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $74,646

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $79,465

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Provides expertise on government policy in a particular area. Gathers background information on issues and tracks legislative initiatives. Works with or advises elected officials, non-profit organizations on interest groups involved with the legislative process.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Policy Analyst is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Policy Analysis: Working experience with Policy Analysis, which is a technique used in public administration to enable civil servants to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of elected officials.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.
• Policy Development: The decision process by which individuals, groups or institutions establish policies pertaining to plans, programs or procedures.
• Public administration: Working experience of Public administration. Public administration is the use of government policy and is also an academic discipline that studies this use and prepares people for working in the public service.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Policy Analyst that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Local Government: Local government is a form of public administration which, in a majority of contexts, exists as the lowest tier of administration within a given state.
• Program Evaluation: Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Policy Analyst
• Deputy Director
• Senior Policy Analyst
• Legislative Analyst
• Policy Advisor

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