At a bank, financial institution, or large corporation, you analyze operational risk — process failures, fraud exposure, technology incidents, vendor risk, regulatory operational risk — and produce the analyses that operational-risk management decisions rest on.
A typical week threads across risk-assessment work, incident analysis, and risk-reporting — supporting business-line risk-and-control self-assessments, analyzing operational-incident data (errors, fraud, technology issues), building risk reports for management and committees, working with business units on remediation. Risk-register currency and incident-trend analysis quality anchor the operating measures.
What complicates the day-to-day is the breadth of operational risk — every business process, every system, every vendor relationship, and every regulatory expectation generates operational-risk exposure, and analysts navigate the breadth while supporting prioritization. Variance across employers shapes the role: large banks run operational risk under regulatory mandate (Basel, SR letters); insurers run operational risk within ORSA frameworks; non-financial corporates run operational risk with more discretion.
It fits people structurally analytical, comfortable across diverse process and technology domains, and steady through incident-response cycles. CRMP, CIA, FRM, and CCEP credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the breadth-without-depth dimension — operational-risk analysts develop working knowledge across many domains rather than deep specialization in one, and the senior career often runs through risk-leadership rather than within the analyst track.
Turn your career record
into a springboard for growth.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Remember “your permanent record”?
This time it works for you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
No skills data available
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Business Operations roles →At a bank, financial institution, or large corporation, you analyze operational risk — process failures, fraud exposure, technology incidents, vendor risk, regulatory operational risk — and produce the analyses that operational-risk management decisions rest on.
Median pay for an Operational Risk Analyst is about $106K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $62K to $182K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 6.5% through 2034, with roughly 56,320 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Risk Management Director, Senior Operational Risk Analyst, and Loss Prevention Operations Manager.
Your job belongs to your employer.
Your career belongs to you.