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FinanceEntry 15

FinancialAnalyst

Three separate careers use this title. One plans a company's own money, one researches investments, one sells financial products to individuals.

The same work is also posted as
FP&A AnalystInvestment AnalystCorporate Finance AnalystEquity Research AssociateBudget AnalystFinancial Advisor

What the title covers

The constant is working with money that has not been spent or earned yet. Corporate planning, usually shortened to FP&A, builds the budget, forecasts what the coming quarters look like, and explains each month why the real numbers differ from the plan. Investment research examines companies or securities to judge whether they are worth buying, on behalf of a fund, a bank or an asset manager. Advisory work manages money for individual people. All three involve building models in Excel. What separates them is whose money it is, who reads the output, and how you are paid for producing it.

A second use of this title

Same title, three different careers

The most common version is corporate planning, and it is the one students expect least. You sit inside an ordinary company rather than a bank, and the work is budgets, forecasts and variance explanations for department heads who did not particularly want to speak to you. It is steady, it teaches you how a business actually makes money, and it is the most reliable way into this field.

Read the employer before you read the description. A bank, fund or asset manager means investment research, recruited on a calendar that starts more than a year ahead. An ordinary company in any industry means corporate planning. A wealth management firm or an insurer means advisory work, which is a sales role paid like one, and worth reading the Financial Representative entry before accepting.

Where it is found

Every industry employs the first version, while the other two sit almost entirely inside financial services.

Companies in every industryCorporate planning teams. The largest employer of this title and the most reliably entry level version of it.
Banks, funds and asset managersInvestment research, with fixed recruiting calendars and heavy competition for a small number of seats.
Insurers and wealth management firmsAdvisory work with individual clients, frequently paid partly or entirely by commission.
Government and healthcare systemsBudget analysis. Slower, more stable, and usually on a published pay scale you can look up before applying.

Typical entry requirements

Education
Bachelor's degree. Finance, accounting and economics are the usual routes, though corporate planning teams hire more broadly
Expected
Excel at a serious level, including building a model another person can follow without you
Frequently required
Understanding the three financial statements and how a change in one moves the other two
Often listed
Progress toward the CFA for investment roles, or licensing exams for advisory roles. Neither is needed for corporate planning
Experience
Zero to two years for corporate planning. Investment research recruits early through internships and is difficult to enter once that window closes
Example of a taskFinance

What a typical day may look like

The request below is typical of how this kind of work is assigned. The steps that follow describe what completing it involves.

Your finance manager5:05 PM
Marketing came in ninety thousand over budget last month and the chief financial officer is asking. I need the explanation before Thursday's review.

Two days.

01

Confirm the overspend is real before explaining it, because an invoice booked to the wrong month or the wrong department produces exactly this number.

02

Split the variance into price and volume, meaning whether the team paid more for the same thing or simply bought more of it.

03

Find the two or three line items responsible for most of the ninety thousand, rather than listing everything that moved.

04

Check whether it was approved somewhere you cannot see, because a decision taken above your level often reaches you as a surprise in a report.

05

Ask the marketing lead directly what happened, and do it before the review rather than during it.

06

Decide whether this is timing or a genuine overspend, since a cost that merely arrived early corrects itself next month.

07

Work out what the full year looks like if this continues, because that is the question the chief financial officer asks next.

What is delivered

A one page variance explanation naming the two or three drivers, a clear statement of whether the overspend is timing or permanent, and the revised full year figure if nothing changes.

FitFinancial Analyst

Is this job for you

Characteristics of the work itself, listed so you can compare them against how you prefer to spend your time.

Yes, if you like

  • Numbers that have to reconcile exactly
  • Learning how the whole business makes its money
  • Building a model other people will rely on
  • Explaining a number to someone who dislikes the answer
  • A predictable calendar built around month end
  • Being the first to notice a problem

No, if you don't like

  • A flexible week at month end and quarter end
  • Deciding how the money actually gets spent
  • Work that is visible outside the finance team
  • Approximate answers that are close enough
  • Getting away from spreadsheets
  • Credit for a forecast that turned out to be right
CompensationUnited States

What this work pays

Two numbers, because they answer two different questions. The first is what you would be paid in your first job. The second is what people in this field earn after they have been doing it for years.

Starting out
$68,873Average starting salary, business graduates, Class of 2026

This is the average across all business graduates rather than this role specifically. Corporate planning roles tend to start near it. Investment research starts well above it and hires far fewer people.

After several years
$101,350Middle of the range across everyone in this field

This is one of the few titles the government tracks under close to its own name. The lowest paid ten percent earn under $62,410 and the highest paid ten percent earn more than $180,550.

Three careers, three different pay patterns

Corporate planning is counted separately as budget analysis, where the middle sits near eighty eight thousand and the pay is a steady salary. Investment research is the figure above, where a bonus can be a large share of the total and moves with the year the firm had. Advisory work shows a similar middle, near a hundred and two thousand, but its lowest tenth earns under fifty thousand because much of the pay is commission and many people leave before it builds. The version you enter is largely decided in your first job rather than later.

SOURCES / NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND EMPLOYERS, WINTER 2026 SALARY SURVEY. U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, OCCUPATIONAL OUTLOOK HANDBOOK, FINANCIAL AND INVESTMENT ANALYSTS, BUDGET ANALYSTS AND PERSONAL FINANCIAL ADVISORS, MAY 2024 WAGE DATA.

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