Throughline

Business and finance

Financial and Investment Analyst in the United States

79 postings read · sampled 2026-09-01 · source ats

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 79 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own
$1,500CPA · ~400 hrs
asked for in 7 of 79 postings — 9%
If you earned all 2 of them
$2,790
fees checked 2026-08
700 hrs
700 hours — over a year at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution; Master's Degree — cost varies by institution.

Lower signal for this role

Credentials that barely appeared in this sample. That is not a claim they are worthless — plenty are valuable for a different job, a different city, or a promotion later. It is a claim that employers here mostly did not ask.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 13-2051.00 · pulled 2026-09-01 · no education survey published for this occupation

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$63,720
10th percentile
$102,740
median
$180,860
90th percentile

Every credential above costs $2,790 — about 7 days' pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Anduril Industries · Collabera · SpaceX · Stripe · Lyft · System Canada Technologies · Zoox · Datadog · GitLab · Harbinger Motors · Integrated Resources Inc · Intuitive Surgical · O-I (Owens-Illinois) · Pioneer Data · USM · vTech Solution · Wealthfront · Artech Information System · Ask IT Consulting · Bicycle Health · Bosch · Braze · Chandos · Checkr · Chime · Curaleaf · Databricks · Elastic · FanDuel · Figure AI · Flexport · Focus Financial Partners · Kin Insurance · Klaviyo · Latitude Inc · Mark43 · MAT Holdings · Monzo · NielsenIQ · Oura · Range · Renuity · Roblox · Success Academy Charter Schools · W3R Consulting

Next

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