Management Analyst Salary in Ohio: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A management analyst in Ohio earns a median salary of $94,270 a year, which works out to about $45.32 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field lands between $61,600 at the 10th percentile and $146,740 at the 90th. That median sits a touch below the national figure, but Ohio’s lower cost of living changes the math once you look at take-home pay.

How Ohio compares to the national median

The national median for management analysts is $101,860, per BLS OEWS 2025. Ohio’s median of $94,270 runs $7,590 below that, or about 7.5 percent lower. That gap is real, but it’s smaller than it looks on paper once you account for what a dollar buys in Columbus or Cincinnati versus the coastal metros that pull the national average up.

Ohio also employs a lot of analysts. With 25,120 people in the role statewide, it’s one of the deeper markets in the Midwest, which means more openings, more competition for talent, and more room to move between employers without relocating. The state mean wage of $100,250 sits above the median, a sign that a cluster of high earners at the top, consulting partners, senior internal strategists, and federal-contract analysts, pulls the average up while the typical worker earns closer to the $94,270 mark.

Here’s the practical read. A management analyst weighing an out-of-state offer should compare net pay and housing cost, not headline salary. A $101,860 national-median job in a high-tax, high-rent metro can leave you with less spendable income than a $94,270 Ohio role. The take-home section below puts exact numbers on that.

Management analyst pay in Ohio by experience

Experience is the single biggest lever on pay in this field. BLS reports the full percentile spread for Ohio, and the distance from bottom to top is wide: a senior analyst at the 90th percentile earns more than double an entry-level analyst at the 10th. The table below maps the percentile points to typical career stages.

A new analyst, often someone a year or two out of a business, finance, or operations degree, starts near $61,600. The jump from entry to the 25th percentile, about $14,000, usually comes fast, within the first two to three years, as you prove you can run an analysis end to end without hand-holding. Getting from the median to the 75th percentile is the harder climb. That $28,390 step rewards people who own outcomes: cost-reduction projects that actually ship, process redesigns that stick, recommendations that leadership adopts. The 90th percentile, $146,740, generally means a title shift, into senior or principal analyst, internal consulting lead, or a strategy role with budget authority.

One thing worth flagging: the percentile gaps are not evenly spaced. The bottom half of the distribution is compressed, while the top half stretches out. That tells you the ceiling in Ohio is high for analysts who specialize and take on harder problems, even though the floor is modest.

To put the spread in concrete terms, the distance from the 10th percentile ($61,600) to the 90th ($146,740) is $85,140. Same job title, same state, and one analyst earns more than 2.3 times another. Almost none of that gap is luck. It tracks certifications, the metro you work in, the sector you serve, and whether your recommendations get adopted. The early-career step from $61,600 to $75,650 is worth roughly $14,050, and on an hourly basis that’s a move from $29.62 to $36.37. The median-to-experienced step is the one most analysts stall at, because crossing $94,270 to $122,660 usually requires you to stop being the person who builds the deck and start being the person whose name is on the outcome.

A useful way to read your own pay against this table: find your current salary, locate the nearest percentile, and treat the next band up as your realistic 12 to 24 month target. If you sit at $75,650 today, the median at $94,270 is your next milestone, an $18,620 raise that the typical Ohio analyst reaches with a few years of delivery and, often, one certification.

Management analyst salary by Ohio metro

Where you work inside Ohio matters more than people expect. The spread between the highest and lowest paying metros in the state is over $15,000 at the median. Dayton, anchored by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its dense web of defense contractors, pays the most. Columbus and Cleveland, despite being the largest job markets, sit in the middle of the pack.

Dayton’s $101,150 median beats the statewide figure by nearly $7,000, and it even edges out the national median. The reason is concentration of federal and defense work, which carries security-clearance premiums and contract-rate structures that lift analyst pay. If you can get a clearance, Dayton is the strongest pay-per-dollar-of-rent market in the state.

Cincinnati comes in second at $97,360, supported by a roster of large corporate headquarters, Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Fifth Third Bank, that keep steady demand for internal strategy and operations analysts. Columbus, the biggest employer of analysts in Ohio at 7,840, pays a median of $90,010. The lower figure reflects a large pool of mid-level corporate and state-government roles rather than a shortage of high-paying work; the volume of jobs is the story there. Cleveland and Akron round out the list, with Akron’s $86,050 the lowest of the five, though its cost of living is correspondingly gentle.

The takeaway for a job seeker: if you’re flexible on location within Ohio, a Dayton or Cincinnati role can mean several thousand dollars more for the same work, before you even factor in housing differences.

It’s worth pausing on why Columbus pays less than its size would suggest. With 7,840 analysts, Columbus alone holds nearly a third of the state’s entire 25,120-person analyst workforce. A market that large fills with every kind of role, junior state-government positions, mid-level corporate operations seats, insurance-sector analysts at the big carriers headquartered there. That breadth pulls the median down to $90,010 even though the city has plenty of $120,000-plus jobs. The lesson is that a low metro median doesn’t mean low ceilings; it means the typical role is mid-level. In Dayton, by contrast, the small employer base of 2,060 is weighted toward higher-paying defense and federal work, which lifts the whole median.

Cross-border commuting is also part of the Cincinnati picture. The Cincinnati metro spans OH, KY, and IN, and its $97,360 median reflects pay across all three states. Analysts living on the Ohio side who commute to a Kentucky or Indiana employer should check reciprocity rules, because the state where you work can change your withholding even when your salary doesn’t move.

Take-home pay after tax in Ohio

Gross salary is the headline. Take-home is what lands in your account. Ohio levies a state income tax, and 2026 brackets keep effective rates modest for most analysts, but federal tax and FICA still take the biggest bites. The table below shows estimated take-home at four points in the career, based on a single filer with the standard deduction.

At the median, an Ohio analyst keeps about $72,829 of a $94,270 salary, an effective combined rate of 22.7 percent. State income tax is the smallest of the three deductions at $1,876, under 2 percent of gross. That’s a meaningful detail, because Ohio’s income tax is light compared with high-tax states, even though it isn’t zero.

Now the cross-state comparison that matters most. Take the same $94,270 Ohio median salary and run it through a no-income-tax state like Texas. In Texas, that salary nets about $74,705, versus $72,829 in Ohio. The difference is $1,876 a year, which is exactly the Ohio state income tax line. So a Texas move saves you roughly $1,876 in tax on this salary, about $156 a month. That’s the entire advantage on the tax side, and it’s smaller than most people assume. Ohio’s modest state rate means the no-tax-state premium here is real but narrow, and it can be wiped out by a single difference in rent or property tax.

The effective rate climbs as you move up the table, which is how progressive tax works. An entry-level analyst at $61,600 keeps 82.1 percent of gross, an effective rate of 17.9 percent, and nets $50,556, or $4,213 a month. By the experienced level at $122,660, the effective rate is 25.2 percent and net annual pay is $91,764, about $7,647 a month. The senior analyst at $146,740 keeps $107,380 after a 26.8 percent effective rate, $8,948 a month. Notice that the senior earner grosses $24,080 more than the experienced one but keeps only about $15,616 of it after tax, a reminder that each step up the ladder is taxed harder than the last.

That’s why the number that actually matters is net pay minus local housing. A $1,876 annual tax saving disappears the moment your monthly rent is $160 higher somewhere else. Ohio’s housing is among the more affordable in the country, so the median analyst keeping $6,069 a month here often has more genuinely spendable income than a peer earning the same gross in a pricier, lower-tax metro. Always compare net pay against local rent or mortgage before you treat a tax difference as a raise. To pressure-test your own numbers, run them through the Ohio paycheck calculator, and when you file, software like TurboTax can confirm your exact state and federal liability.

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How to earn more as a management analyst in Ohio

The percentile spread in section two shows there’s real room to move up. Here are the steps that move the needle in this state specifically.

• Earn a recognized certification. The CMC (Certified Management Consultant) and PMP (Project Management Professional) credentials are the two most respected by Ohio employers, and both consistently sort analysts toward the upper percentiles. Lean Six Sigma Green or Black Belt carries weight at the state’s heavy manufacturing and logistics employers. You can build the underlying coursework through providers like Coursera before sitting the exams.
• Chase a security clearance. Dayton’s $101,150 median is driven by defense and federal-contract work. A clearance is one of the few credentials that delivers an immediate, structural pay bump rather than a gradual one.
• Target the higher-paying metros. Moving a job search from Akron to Cincinnati or Dayton is worth $11,000 to $15,000 at the median for the same role, before housing adjustments.
• Specialize in a domain. Analysts who go deep in healthcare operations, supply chain, or financial systems command more than generalists. Ohio’s large healthcare and logistics sectors reward that focus directly.
• Own outcomes, not tasks. The jump from the median to the 75th percentile, $28,390, rewards people who can point to cost saved or revenue gained from their recommendations. Keep a quantified record of every project that shipped.
• Move into internal consulting or strategy. The 90th-percentile figure of $146,740 generally tracks a title change. Position yourself for senior, principal, or strategy-lead roles with budget authority.
• Consider an adjacent role. A project management specialist in Ohio earns a $95,770 median, $1,500 above the analyst median, and the skill overlap makes it an easy lateral with a small raise. See section seven for the full comparison.

Put a number on it. An analyst sitting at the $94,270 median who lands a certification, moves from Columbus to Dayton, and takes on owned outcomes can realistically target the $122,660 experienced band within a couple of years. That’s a $28,390 gross raise, and after Ohio tax it’s roughly $18,935 more in take-home each year. The levers are stackable, and few of them require leaving the state.

Job outlook for management analysts in Ohio

Ohio’s 25,120 employed analysts make this one of the steadier white-collar markets in the Midwest, spread across corporate headquarters, government, healthcare systems, and a deep bench of defense and federal contractors. Demand for the role has held up well nationally as employers keep pushing on cost control and process efficiency, and Ohio’s diversified economy, manufacturing, finance, insurance, healthcare, and logistics all in one state, gives analysts more than one sector to land in if any single industry cools.

For anyone job hunting, the high employer concentration in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland means you can often switch companies without moving cities. To see current openings and pay ranges in your metro, ZipRecruiter is a fast way to gauge live demand.

Related and higher-paying roles in Ohio

If you’re weighing a pivot, here’s how nearby roles pay against a management analyst’s $94,270 Ohio median, using BLS OEWS 2025 figures for the same state.

A project management specialist in Ohio earns a median of $95,770, which is $1,500 MORE than a management analyst in Ohio. The two roles overlap heavily in skills, so it’s often a lateral move with a small bump. A human resources specialist, by contrast, earns a median of $70,180, which is $24,090 LESS than a management analyst in Ohio. That’s a sizable gap, and it reflects how much the analyst’s quantitative, strategy-facing work commands over generalist HR support roles.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; federal and Ohio 2026 tax tables. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.