Budget Analyst Career Assessment
Planning how an organization spends its money
Welcome
Budget analysts help an organization plan how it will spend its money for the year, then watch whether the spending stays on plan.
This is a small, specialized job in North Dakota. You will explore what it involves and whether it is worth aiming for.
This takes about 15 minutes.
What is a Budget Analyst?
A budget is a written plan for money: how much comes in, and what each department is allowed to spend. A budget analyst builds that plan, checks that department requests are reasonable, watches the spending all year, and explains to leaders why the numbers did or did not come out as planned. Most budget analysts work for government.
The Reality: Two honest warnings. First, this is not an entry-level job. It almost always needs a bachelor's degree and several years of accounting, finance, or government office experience first. Second, North Dakota is a very small market. O*NET shows about 80 budget analysts in the whole state, and the state projection shows 0 openings a year and a small decline through 2034. Plan on getting here by moving up inside an employer you already work for, not by answering an ad.
Your Responsibilities:
- Collect budget requests from each department
- Check whether the requests are reasonable and allowed
- Build the yearly budget plan
- Compare real spending to the plan every month
- Explain differences between plan and reality
- Estimate what future costs will be
- Write reports and give presentations to leaders
- Make sure spending follows the law and the rules
You help an organization decide what it can afford, and then hold it to that.
A Day in the Life
8:00 AM — Read the monthly spending reports for three departments.
9:00 AM — One department is 12% over plan. Email them for an explanation.
10:00 AM — Meeting: a manager wants to add a position. Work out what it really costs.
11:30 AM — Build a spreadsheet showing three years of that cost.
12:00 PM — Lunch.
1:00 PM — Write a short, plain-language summary for the director.
2:30 PM — Check that a purchase follows the spending rules. It does not. Send it back.
4:30 PM — Start pulling numbers for next year's budget request.
Desk work, spreadsheets, and a lot of careful writing and explaining.
Training in North Dakota
A bachelor's degree plus experience. Almost nobody starts here. Employers want a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, business, economics, or public administration, and they want you to have already worked with budgets. The normal route is to take an accounting, finance, or office job with a government agency or a large organization and move into budget work from the inside.
Training Pathways:
- Two-year degree, then a government office job (2 years plus): An accounting or business associate degree gets you into a clerk, accounting technician, or fiscal support job. That is where you learn how a real budget works.
- Bachelor's degree (4 years): Accounting, finance, or business administration. This is the degree most budget analyst postings ask for. Public administration also fits, because most of these jobs are in government.
- Move up inside your employer: The most common real path. Work in accounting or fiscal support for a state agency, city, county, school district, or hospital, learn its budget process, and apply when a budget position opens.
Where to Train in North Dakota:
- Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — Bachelor of Applied Science in Finance, 4 years, online or on campus. BSC lists budget analyst as one of the jobs this degree prepares you for, and you can build toward it with the 2-year Financial Technologies AAS first — bismarckstate.edu
- Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — Financial Technologies, AAS, 2 years, on campus or online, with stackable certificates in Accounting, Management, and Data Analytics — bismarckstate.edu
- North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Accounting major, on campus, in the College of Business — ndsu.edu
- University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) — Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance, 120 credits, on campus or online — und.edu
- University of Mary (Bismarck) — Accounting, BS, in person, online, evening, or blended — umary.edu
- North Dakota State College of Science (Wahpeton and Fargo) — Business Management, AAS (Administration and Finance), 61 credits, a solid two-year starting point — catalog.ndscs.edu
Before You Start: High school diploma or GED to start a degree. Strong spreadsheet skills matter more here than advanced math. You also need to write clearly, because a lot of this job is explaining numbers to people who do not like numbers.
Tip: Start with financial aid, scholarships, and any help an employer offers — that is where the money starts. After that, ask a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota whether WIOA or other programs can help with what is left over, like training, tools, work boots, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you sign up rather than after. Registered apprenticeships let you earn a paycheck while you learn — see jobsnd.com/job-seeker/apprenticeships for ND programs.
Certification & Licensing
No license is required. One government credential is worth knowing about. There is no state or federal license for budget analysts. The credential people in government finance often pursue is the CGFM, from AGA.
Credentials to Know:
- No license required — your degree and your experience are the qualification
- CGFM (Certified Government Financial Manager, from AGA) — needs a bachelor's degree in any subject from an accredited U.S. college, three exams, and at least two years of professional-level U.S. government financial management experience verified on a form (agacgfm.org)
- CPA — not required, but some budget analysts hold one. See the accountant path for what North Dakota requires (ndsba.nd.gov)
- Background check — government employers usually run one. Rules differ by agency, so ask the specific employer rather than assuming
The Exams: The CGFM has three exams: Governmental Environment; Governmental Accounting, Financial Reporting and Budgeting; and Governmental Financial Management and Control. Each was listed at $150. You have 18 months from approval to finish all three, and you must wait 30 days before retaking one you failed (agacgfm.org).
Cost: The CGFM exams were listed at $150 each. There is no license fee, because there is no license.
Keeping It Current: The CGFM requires ongoing continuing professional education to stay active. Check AGA for the current hour requirement.
Salary & Job Outlook
North Dakota Budget Analyst Pay (May 2025):
- Starting out (bottom 10–25%): $29.50–$33.07/hour ($61,350–$68,790/year)
- Middle (median — half earn more, half earn less): $37.21/hour ($77,400/year)
- Experienced (top 25–10%): $42.16–$48.28/hour ($87,700–$100,420/year)
What that means: Read these numbers carefully. The middle North Dakota budget analyst earns about $37.21 an hour, or about $77,400 a year, and even the bottom tenth is about $29.50. That looks great, but it is because almost nobody starts in this job — the low end is still an experienced person. The whole state has only about 80 of these positions, so a small survey sample can move these numbers around. North Dakota also pays well below the national middle of about $44.06 an hour, because most of these jobs here are government rather than private industry.
Jobs in North Dakota: About 80 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 80 (about 4% decline). Expect about 0 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is about 1% growth — slower than average.
Outlook: Weak in North Dakota, and you should know that before you plan around it. O*NET shows about 80 budget analysts statewide, a small decline by 2034, and 0 projected openings a year. That does not mean no one is ever hired — it means openings are rare and usually filled from inside. Treat this as a job to grow into, not a job to train for directly.
Who Hires in ND: North Dakota state agencies, city and county governments, school districts, higher education, hospitals and health systems, large nonprofits, and a few large private employers.
Work Setting: An office, usually a government office. Regular weekday hours most of the year. Budget season and the legislative session are the crunch times.
Physical Demands: Low. Sitting at a desk and working on a computer. The same eye, back, and wrist strain as any desk job, and the same reasonable fixes: adjustable chair, sit-stand desk, larger monitors, screen-reader or magnification software.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 13-2031); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.
Where This Leads
Path 1: Accounting or Fiscal Clerk — Where most people actually start.
Path 2: Accounting Technician — More responsibility with budgets and reports.
Path 3: Budget Analyst — Own the budget for a program or department.
Path 4: Senior Budget Analyst — Handle the biggest and most political budgets.
Path 5: Budget Officer or Fiscal Manager — Run the whole budget office.
Path 6: Finance Director — Lead finance for an agency or city.
The Real Talk
What's Great:
- Good pay for office work
- Regular weekday hours
- Government benefits and stability
- Your work shapes real decisions
- Low physical demands
- Skills move to any agency
What's Hard:
- Very few jobs in North Dakota
- Not an entry-level job
- Needs a bachelor's degree
- Budget season is stressful
- You deliver news people do not want
- Sitting at a screen all day
Be Honest: Are you willing to spend several years in an accounting or fiscal job first? Can you stay calm when you have to tell a manager no? Are you OK aiming at a career where North Dakota may have no openings in a given year?