Data Analyst Salary in Chicago (May 2025 BLS)

Data Analyst Jobs and Salaries in Chicago (May 2025 BLS Data)

Dan Patiño

· AI Strategy & Innovation at Coderhouse

Two questions decide whether Chicago is a sensible place to start a data career: how much the work pays, and how much of it there is. Locally the median is $107,640, entry-level pay sits nearer $70,740, and the metro holds roughly 7,940 of these roles. Everything below comes from the BLS OEWS May 2025 release.

Median salary

$107,640

Entry level (10th pct)

$70,740

Concentration (LQ)

46113

How big is the data job market in Chicago?

Market size first: about 7,940 roles locally, 2.9% of the 275,600 nationwide, ranking 7th of the 25 metros covered here. Growth projections for the occupation run at 35% nationally.

What do data analysts earn in Chicago?

Pay in Chicago centers on $107,640, 10% below the national median. Move out from there and the middle half of the market sits between $84,600 and $138,210, while the best-paid tenth clears $168,880. Mean pay is $118,860.

What can you expect to earn starting out in Chicago?

Starting pay is the number most sites skip. In Chicago the bottom decile earns $70,740 and the bottom quarter $84,600, against a national 10th percentile of $67,240. Those two figures bracket what a realistic first offer looks like far better than the median does.

Is Chicago actually a data hub?

The location quotient for data scientists in Chicago is 1.04, meaning the occupation is about as concentrated here as it is nationally. In practice, the market is roughly the size the metro population would predict. This is the number most salary sites leave out, and it is often more decisive than pay: a metro can post a high median while employing very few people in the role, which means strong salaries and a thin job market.

What about AI engineering roles in Chicago?

The BLS has no occupation code for AI engineer. The closest published proxy is Software Developers (15-1252), which in Chicago employs about 40,370 people at a median of $134,380, 0% in line with the national median of $135,980. The 10th percentile is $83,820 and the 90th is $203,410. Read it as the surrounding band for applied AI work rather than as a figure for the role itself, since AI engineers are distributed across several codes.

10th percentile

$70,740

25th percentile

$84,600

Median

$107,640

Mean

$118,860

75th percentile

$138,210

90th percentile

$168,880

vs national median

10% below the national median

Software developers · median

$134,380

How to get started from Chicago

Studying for this does not require being anywhere in particular. Coderhouse teaches Data Analytics live online across 11 weeks for $595, one class a week plus 6 to 8 hours of practice. You leave with portfolio work and a certificate; finding the Chicago role is a separate job that the course does not do for you.

AI Engineering

8 weeks · live online

Build AI systems you can explain, evaluate, and improve—not just demos that happen to call an LLM. Work hands-on with retrieval, RAG, tool use, agents, evals, observability, and deployment while learning the engineering judgment behind reliable AI applications.

See Dates

$595

Data Analytics

11 weeks · live online

Learn to turn data into decisions—not just dashboards. Build practical skills in SQL, Python, metrics, statistics, experimentation, visualization, and AI-assisted analysis, with live feedback from practitioners who do this work professionally.

See dates

$595

Frequently asked questions

How much do data analysts make in Chicago?

The median for the closest BLS occupation, data scientists, is $107,640 a year in the Chicago metro area as of May 2025. The range runs from $70,740 at the 10th percentile to $168,880 at the 90th.

How many data jobs are there in Chicago?

About 7,940 positions under SOC 15-2051, which is 1.04 times the national concentration per worker. That ratio tells you whether the market is deep or just large.

Is Chicago a good place to start a data career?

On the data: pay is 10% below the national median and the occupation is about as concentrated here as it is nationally. The entry reference point is $70,740. Weigh both together, since a high median in a thin market is harder to break into than a moderate median in a dense one.

What is the entry-level data analyst salary in Chicago?

BLS does not publish by experience level. The 10th percentile, $70,740, is the best available proxy for early-career pay, against $67,240 nationally.

Do I need to live in Chicago to work in data?

Not necessarily, and remote roles widen the market considerably. These figures measure where the job is located rather than where the worker lives, so a remote role at a Chicago employer would still appear in this metro's count.

Where these numbers come from

All figures come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025 release, for the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area. BLS does not publish a 'data analyst' occupation; the figures above use Data Scientists (SOC 15-2051), the closest published match, and Software Developers (SOC 15-1252) as the proxy for AI engineering roles. OEWS estimates are built from six semiannual panels collected over three years, so they are stable but lag fast-moving pay changes. Wages cover base pay and exclude equity and bonuses, which understates total compensation at large technology employers.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025