---
title: "Financial Quantitative Analyst"
description: "Develop quantitative techniques to inform securities investing, equities investing, pricing, or valuation of financial instruments. Develop mathematical…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-quantitative-analyst"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Financial Quantitative Analyst

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2099 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2099.01

Develop quantitative techniques to inform securities investing, equities investing, pricing, or valuation of financial instruments. Develop mathematical or statistical models for risk management, asset optimization, pricing, or relative value analysis.

Also advertised as: Investment Portfolio Control Consultant; Investment Strategist; Portfolio Manager; Quantitative Analyst; Quantitative Equity Analyst; Quantitative Research Analyst; Quantitative Strategy Analyst; Research Analyst.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $81,100 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $38.99/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $48,460 to $151,490, with the middle half between $61,290 and $110,410
- **Total US employment:** 132,130
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 9,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 8/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 132,130 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $48,460 |
| 25th | $61,290 |
| 50th (median) | $81,100 |
| 75th | $110,410 |
| 90th | $151,490 |
| Mean (average) | $93,810 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $125,110 | $113,839 | 2,460 |
| ME | $109,060 | $112,375 | 1,250 |
| NY | $107,490 | $99,601 | 9,750 |
| MD | $101,400 | $96,609 | 3,790 |
| MA | $99,970 | $94,528 | Not published by BLS |
| NJ | $98,630 | $90,648 | 5,510 |
| VA | $92,930 | $91,915 | 5,070 |
| IN | $92,410 | $99,015 | 1,930 |
| OH | $90,060 | $97,075 | 4,170 |
| CO | $87,430 | $84,841 | 4,030 |
| AL | $87,110 | $98,071 | 530 |
| SD | $86,260 | $97,374 | 90 |
| WV | $86,200 | $96,316 | 920 |
| NH | $83,590 | $80,248 | 420 |
| MN | $83,280 | $84,444 | 820 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-quantitative-analyst/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/financial-quantitative-analyst.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 137,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 143,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 5,600 jobs, or +4.1%. About as fast as average: 4.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 9,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Master's Degree | 60.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 35.0% |
| Doctoral Degree | 5.0% |

## What the work involves

- Apply mathematical or statistical techniques to address practical issues in finance, such as derivative valuation, securities trading, risk management, or financial market regulation.
- Research or develop analytical tools to address issues such as portfolio construction or optimization, performance measurement, attribution, profit and loss measurement, or pricing models.
- Interpret results of financial analysis procedures.
- Define or recommend model specifications or data collection methods.
- Produce written summary reports of financial research results.
- Maintain or modify all financial analytic models in use.
- Devise or apply independent models or tools to help verify results of analytical systems.
- Research new financial products or analytics to determine their usefulness.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Mathematics — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mathematics — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Mathematical Reasoning — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Number Facility — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 6.67 |
| C — Conventional | 5.79 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.45 |
| A — Artistic | 1.85 |
| R — Realistic | 1.63 |
| S — Social | 1.58 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INTJ | 78.7 |
| ISTJ | 75.7 |
| ENTJ | 65.5 |
| ESTJ | 64.2 |
| ISTP | 60.6 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ, ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Data Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-scientist) — median $120,230
- [Financial Risk Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-risk-specialist) — median $117,330
- [Financial and Investment Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-and-investment-analyst) — median $102,740
- [Statistician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/statistician) — median $105,650
- [Operations Research Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operations-research-analyst) — median $88,940
- [Investment Fund Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/investment-fund-manager) — median $166,570
- [Statistical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/statistical-assistant) — median $50,330
- [Business Intelligence Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/business-intelligence-analyst) — median $120,230
- [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) — median $101,860
- [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/financial-quantitative-analyst