At a shipper, carrier, or 3PL, you analyze freight spend, performance, and operational data — building reports on transportation cost, lane analysis, carrier scorecarding, and the analytical work that supports freight-strategy decisions.
Most days mix data extraction, modeling, and the steady cadence of reporting work — pulling shipment data from the TMS or carrier portals, building Excel or BI models on lane-level cost and service, producing carrier scorecards, supporting RFP-cycle analysis. Analytical quality, decision support to operations, and report turnaround shape the visible measures.
The friction often lies in the data-cleanup overhead — transportation data lives across TMS, accounting, and carrier systems, and reconciliation often consumes more time than the actual analysis. Variance across employers is sharp: large shippers run with mature freight-analytics teams and substantial data; smaller shippers and 3PLs run with leaner analytical resources.
This work tends to fit folks who enjoy data work, carry comfort with transportation economics, and have patience for the data-quality challenges that freight datasets present. CSCMP, transportation-analytics credentials, and growing SQL or BI-tool fluency anchor advancement. The trade-off is the cycle-time pressure around procurement events and the modest visibility of analytical work that compounds over years.
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Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Admin & Office roles →At a shipper, carrier, or 3PL, you analyze freight spend, performance, and operational data — building reports on transportation cost, lane analysis, carrier scorecarding, and the analytical work that supports freight-strategy decisions.
Median pay for a Freight Analyst is about $50K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $37K to $76K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Reading Comprehension, Coordination, Monitoring, Active Listening, and Critical Thinking.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 8.5% through 2034, with roughly 97,800 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Senior Freight Analyst, Ocean Freight Customer Relations Specialist, and Air Export Coordinator.
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