--- title: "Internal Auditor" description: "Reviews an organization's controls, processes and risks from the inside, reporting to the board on whether things work as they should." canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/internal-auditor" last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z" --- # Internal Auditor **Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2011.00 Reviews an organization's controls, processes and risks from the inside, reporting to the board on whether things work as they should. Also advertised as: Internal Audit Manager; Senior Internal Auditor; Operational Auditor; Internal Audit Analyst; Chief Audit Executive. ## At a glance - **Median annual wage:** $83,680 (BLS OEWS, May 2025) - **Median hourly wage:** $40.23/hr - **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $56,020 to $144,090, with the middle half between $67,020 and $109,810 - **Total US employment:** 1,449,500 - **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's - **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed" - **Projected growth:** +5.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035) - **Annual job openings:** 115,300 openings a year - **AI-resilience score:** 12/100 — 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 1,449,500 US jobs. | Percentile | Annual wage | | --- | --- | | 10th | $56,020 | | 25th | $67,020 | | 50th (median) | $83,680 | | 75th | $109,810 | | 90th | $144,090 | | Mean (average) | $94,750 | ### 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 | $111,530 | $101,482 | 9,810 | | NY | $102,640 | $95,107 | 109,830 | | NJ | $100,830 | $92,670 | 42,250 | | MA | $99,460 | $94,046 | 46,230 | | CT | $97,550 | $94,151 | 16,770 | | CA | $97,050 | $87,654 | 175,360 | | CO | $97,030 | $94,156 | 35,410 | | WA | $96,550 | $90,223 | 34,740 | | RI | $95,820 | $93,684 | 6,570 | | DE | $95,020 | $95,203 | 6,570 | | VA | $93,290 | $92,271 | 47,100 | | MD | $89,370 | $85,148 | 26,170 | | OR | $85,800 | $83,010 | 14,920 | | NH | $83,470 | $80,132 | 7,000 | | AK | $83,460 | $81,537 | 2,190 | 39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/internal-auditor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/internal-auditor. ## Outlook BLS projects employment to move from 1,595,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,674,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 79,400 jobs, or +5.0%. Faster than average: 5.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 115,300 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:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed". - **Related work experience typically required:** None. - **Typical on-the-job training:** None. ## What the work involves - Plan audits based on organizational risks - Test internal controls and business processes - Interview employees and review documents - Identify control gaps, inefficiencies and fraud risks - Write audit reports with recommendations - Follow up on management's corrective actions - Present results to the audit committee ## Skills and knowledge ### Essential skills - Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Active Listening — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Writing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Speaking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Mathematics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Monitoring — importance 3.3 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 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Negotiation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ### Knowledge areas - Economics and Accounting — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - English Language — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Mathematics — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Law and Government — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale ### Abilities - Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Mathematical Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Oral Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Oral Expression — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale - Written Expression — importance 3.8 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 Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Investigative (I). | Interest area | Score (1–7) | | --- | --- | | C — Conventional | 7.00 | | E — Enterprising | 4.45 | | I — Investigative | 4.42 | | S — Social | 2.13 | | R — Realistic | 1.14 | | A — Artistic | 1.08 | ### 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) | | --- | --- | | ESTJ | 77.1 | | ISTJ | 75.1 | | ISFJ | 67.1 | | ENTJ | 65.8 | | ESFJ | 65.2 | Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ. ## Related occupations O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order. - [Accountant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/accountant) — median $83,680 - [Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bookkeeping-accounting-and-auditing-clerk) — median $50,670 - [Financial Examiner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-examiner) — median $94,160 - [Treasurer and Controller](https://nuecareer.com/careers/treasurer-and-controller) — median $166,570 - [Tax Preparer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-preparer) — median $54,920 - [Financial Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-manager) — median $166,570 - [Budget Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/budget-analyst) — median $91,640 - [Credit Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-analyst) — median $83,510 - [Financial Advisor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-advisor) — median $105,070 - [Tax Examiner and Collector, and Revenue Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent) — median $62,370 ## 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/internal-auditor