---
title: "Royalty Analyst"
description: "Tracks, calculates and audits the royalties owed to songwriters, artists and rights holders at labels, publishers and collecting societies."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/royalty-analyst"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Royalty Analyst

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-3031 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-3031.00

Tracks, calculates and audits the royalties owed to songwriters, artists and rights holders at labels, publishers and collecting societies.

Also advertised as: Royalty Coordinator; Royalty Accountant; Royalty Administrator; Music Royalty Specialist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $50,670 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $24.36/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $36,000 to $74,550, with the middle half between $43,520 and $61,470
- **Total US employment:** 1,373,680
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -5.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 144,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 10/100 — 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 1,373,680 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $36,000 |
| 25th | $43,520 |
| 50th (median) | $50,670 |
| 75th | $61,470 |
| 90th | $74,550 |
| Mean (average) | $53,560 |

### 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 | $65,180 | $59,308 | 1,790 |
| CT | $59,970 | $57,881 | 14,930 |
| MA | $59,830 | $56,573 | 29,110 |
| CA | $59,230 | $53,495 | 151,870 |
| WA | $58,620 | $54,778 | 32,930 |
| NJ | $58,300 | $53,582 | 37,550 |
| NY | $58,160 | $53,891 | 84,280 |
| AK | $56,430 | $55,129 | 4,580 |
| VT | $54,720 | $55,861 | 2,950 |
| MN | $54,600 | $55,363 | 26,850 |
| OR | $54,060 | $52,302 | 21,710 |
| CO | $54,000 | $52,401 | 26,140 |
| MD | $53,540 | $51,010 | 18,170 |
| RI | $53,280 | $52,092 | 4,570 |
| NH | $52,450 | $50,353 | 7,180 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/royalty-analyst/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/royalty-analyst.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,532,400 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,446,800 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 85,600 jobs, or -5.6%. Declining: -5.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 144,100 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:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 40.9% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 20.8% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 12.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 8.5% |
| Master's Degree | 6.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 6.4% |

## What the work involves

- Process royalty statements from streaming services and collecting societies
- Match usage data to songs, recordings and contracts
- Calculate royalties using contract rates, splits and advances
- Prepare royalty statements for artists, writers and publishers
- Investigate unmatched or disputed royalty income
- Maintain song and contract data in royalty systems
- Support internal and external royalty audits

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Mathematics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 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.

- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematical Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.5 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 | 3.75 |
| I — Investigative | 3.45 |
| R — Realistic | 1.63 |
| S — Social | 1.49 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 81.1 |
| ESTJ | 80.7 |
| ISFJ | 72.1 |
| ESFJ | 66.7 |
| ENTJ | 63.3 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bookkeeping-accounting-and-auditing-clerk) — median $50,670
- [Billing and Posting Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/billing-and-posting-clerk) — median $48,500
- [Payroll and Timekeeping Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/payroll-and-timekeeping-clerk) — median $58,260
- [Brokerage Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/brokerage-clerk) — median $65,750
- [Credit Authorizer, Checker, and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-authorizer-checker-and-clerk) — median $50,080
- [Office Clerk, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-clerk-general) — median $45,010
- [Teller](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teller) — median $43,030
- [File Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/file-clerk) — median $43,600
- [Loan Interviewer and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/loan-interviewer-and-clerk) — median $50,020
- [Insurance Claim and Policy Processing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-claim-and-policy-processing-clerk) — median $49,230

## 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/royalty-analyst