41 Honest Help Desk Analyst Salaries

Landing a job as a help desk analyst tends to be the first step — not the last — in someone’s IT career path. Many IT professionals who started as help desk analysts have since moved on to earn great salaries. That’s not to say a help desk analyst’s salary is bad, but depending on where you live and work, it might feel lacking. However, the job can often lead to much bigger and better salaries in more complex and challenging careers.

So the question becomes: what should your job pay you? The first lesson is location: fair salaries for help desk analysts change a lot based on where you work. Experience and training also matter a lot. Most help desk analyst positions are bare-bones entry-level. But with training and certifications, you can prove yourself more valuable and increase your earnings. 

As a service to IT professionals who are looking for jobs, we’ve collected salary information for help desk analysts all over the country. It can also benefit help desk analysts who are already working and want to make sure they’re getting paid the right amount. 

Read on and learn not just what the picture of salaries looks like nationwide and on a state-by-state basis—and what you can do to improve your salary. 

What is a Help Desk Analyst?

A help desk analyst often serves as the first line of defense for a customer service or support team. Generally speaking, help desk analysts are the individuals who receive the initial inquiry from a customer and determine whether it’s a routine issue they can resolve or if it requires more advanced support.

Help desk analysts spend a lot of their time with clients and customers, sometimes over the phone, and other times via email or live chat. One of the most valuable things a help desk analyst can do for any company is filtering. In the medical world, this is known as triage. In the IT world, a help desk analyst recognizes the relatively simple hardware, software, or network issues that can be fixed quickly and proceeds to do so. They also identify the more complex issues and forward those to the appropriate personnel.

Help desk analysts tend to be paid entry-level salaries. That’s because their responsibilities generally don’t include dealing with complex issues. But, as a help desk analyst learns more about hardware, software, network troubleshooting, management, and configuration, they can look forward to an increased salary and job prospects.

41 Real Salaries for Help Desk Analysts

Now that you have a sense of what a help desk analyst does, let’s inspect salaries. We wanted to get snapshots that explain salaries for help desk analysts around the country. As you’ll see, the national average and state-by-state averages look pretty different. However, even within the same states, different cities have very different salary averages.

As we looked at the national average, we saw the numbers splitting into three different ranges: a high-end average, a low-end average, and an overall average. So we split the salary information into those three ranges to give you a sense of all the possibilities. 

Low-end averages tend to be entry-level positions, while high-end averages represent jobs with greater responsibilities and experience expectations.

• The national average salary for a Help Desk Analyst is $50,106.

• The average high for a Help Desk Analyst is $56,000.

• The average low for a Help Desk Analyst is $41,000.

Those are the national numbers. but look at this chart for 41 help desk analysts' salaries from around the United States, via ZipRecruiter. You’ll see that some cities differ quite a bit from the national averages.

Big, coastal cities still dominate the best average salaries. Looking at the latest help desk analysts' salaries, you can see that major coastal cities continue to lead in pay. San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, and Los Angeles all rank among the highest-paying cities for help desk analysts. In these locations, the average salary is above $50,000, with San Francisco topping the list at $59,316.

The national average salary for a help desk analyst is around $48,000, meaning these cities offer significantly better pay. Location still matters—and it’s clear that cost of living plays a major role in determining salaries. Smaller cities in these same regions, such as Salem, OR, Newport News, VA, and Rochester, NY, have noticeably lower average salaries in the mid-$40,000 range.

4 Salary Considerations for Help Desk Analysts

If you’re looking for work as a help desk analyst, make sure you do everything you can to improve your odds of getting a good salary. As the above chart shows, where you work can affect your salary. 

But other factors affect the outcome much more, including: 

• Experience 

• Training

• Certification

• Industry

In the next sections, we'll discuss how those factors can impact your salary as a help desk analyst.

Experience Requirements for Help Desk Analysts

The experience necessary to become a help desk analyst is often relatively low. Many job postings for a help desk analyst don’t require a bachelor’s degree or any more experience than a year in a computer-related position. That can make a help desk analyst position appealing to someone looking to start their career in IT.

On the other hand, that means advancement, promotion, and a better salary are entirely up to you. The upside to entry-level positions is that you can get in without much experience; the downside is that you must get a lot of experience on the job.

Because help desk analysts spend at least as much time dealing with clients and customers as they do fixing technology, most companies expect strong written and oral communication skills. You’ll also want to have a sense of how to diagnose a problem quickly and make good notes about the problem.

4 Customer Support Tools You'll Need to Know

It’s hard to say exactly which tools a help desk analyst will need to know. That’s because different companies can use various tools to accomplish the same thing. So, rather than name the exact tools you should learn, we’ve identified the categories of tools that will help you succeed in this field. 

Hardware and Network Performance Monitoring Tools

A lot of the help desk analyst's work is automatic, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. For example, it’s not a help desk analyst’s job to visit a user’s computer and manually diagnose errors. There are computer programs that analyze the performance of a target machine. However, once those programs have an output, an analyst’s job is to make sense of the results.

Salary impact of hardware and network performance monitoring tools: Huge. A help desk analyst can’t do anything if they don’t accurately understand the problem. That doesn’t mean you have to fix everything that comes your way. But when you use the tools that monitor hardware performance and network traffic and give a snapshot of what’s happening, you do need to understand what that snapshot means.

Remote Monitoring and Management Tools

Identifying the piece of hardware that’s malfunctioning or the setting that’s misconfigured is the first step. For simple issues, help desk analysts are responsible for doing something about it. If it’s a relatively minor fix, a network monitoring and management tool lets you get remote access to a client or customer’s PC so you can perform the necessary fix or update on your own. Many companies have proprietary RMMs that you couldn’t learn ahead of time. But you should still learn about different RMMs and have a sense of what they’re capable of.

Salary impact of remote monitoring and management tools: Significant. The ability to remote into a computer and fix simple issues is a pillar of a Help Desk Analyst’s job. There are too many different remote monitoring and management tools ever to learn. But it would look great to a potential employer if you could at least talk about them.

Ticketing Systems and Tools

The success or failure of any tech support team is often its ticketing system. A really well-written ticket that captures all the relevant information and diagnoses underlying problems can help ensure nothing gets overlooked, work doesn’t get done twice, and no customers fall through the cracks. But the skill of writing good tickets that go to the right people is rare—even among help desk analysts.

Salary impact of knowing ticketing systems and tools: Significant. For new help desk analysts, learning ticketing probably sounds like the least sexy job possible. But actually, a ton of the work you’ll end up doing in your job will come down to writing tickets. Like a lot of the tools on this list, many ticketing systems are proprietary, so it’s hard to learn them in advance. But if you know what they are and what makes different ticketing systems different, you stand a good chance of making a great impression.

Port Scanning Tools

Port scanning is a diagnostic approach that network administrators usually take. But help desk analysts should be ready to use them for outlier cases. Running a port scan can reveal if a problem is simple enough to handle at a low level, or if it needs to be moved up, and what seems to be causing the problem.

Salary impact of knowing port scanning tools: Considerable. Knowing how to use port scanning tools will make you a more versatile analyst. A help desk analyst doesn’t just give jobs to other people to fix; they’re also responsible for fixing simple problems and getting information about particularly challenging issues.

4 Best Certifications for a Help Desk Analyst

Earning certifications is one of the best possible ways to demonstrate excellence in your job and earn promotions to much better salaries. Help desk analysts are very often at the start of their careers and might never have heard of certifications or not know the good ones from the okay ones.

Certifications are often given out by groups of experts in a certain field after someone takes a test. CompTIA is an organization of IT professionals, and they issue some of the most widely recognized, best-respected certifications in the IT community. Sometimes, manufacturers of hardware or developers of software will issue certifications as well. 

Who else could say with more confidence that the person who holds the certification understands how the technology works? Cisco and Microsoft have some great certifications, too.

CompTIA A+

CompTIA is one of the IT world’s most respected professional organizations. It offers vendor-agnostic certifications, which don’t relate specifically to using one piece of hardware or one developer’s software. As an organization, CompTIA is more interested in certifying entire categories of work, regardless of what technology makes them possible. The A+ is their entry-level service desk/help desk/tech support certification.

Salary impact of earning the CompTIA A+: Huge. The A+ has been the first certification earned by IT professionals for years. People who hold an A+ are certified to work with mobile devices, networking tech, hardware, virtualization, cloud computing, and network troubleshooting. For a help desk analyst, it might cover more than you’ll deal with, but it’s a great way to earn a better salary and, eventually, a better job.

CompTIA Network+

The Network+ is CompTIA’s certification for entry-level networking professionals. The content of Network+ is both more focused on network administration and more advanced than most help desk analysts will need for their first job. However, earning it shows commitment to the job and can expose you to possible networking roles if your company has roles available. 

Salary impact of getting the CompTIA Network+: Considerable. If you’re a new help desk analyst and you want to improve your salary with a certification, the A+ is your best bet. But if you already have the A+ and you want to become even more capable while also exploring a possible new career, the Network+ would be a great second choice.

Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)

Cisco manufactures networking hardware and the software that runs it. If the company you work for doesn’t use Cisco for their network, earning a Cisco certification might not be the best use of your time. But if you deal with many network issues for your help desk analyst position and your company relies on Cisco tech, earning the CCNA is a huge step toward demonstrating mastery of your tools.

Salary impact of earning the CCNA: Significant. The CCNA is a career objective for many IT professionals. For a help desk analyst, one of the best reasons for pursuing a CCNA is that it can help offset a lack of a bachelor’s degree — if you came into the career without one. A CCNA isn’t the same as a degree, but earning one can make not having a degree less of a big deal when trying for better salaries.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate

Microsoft certifies IT professionals who’ll be working on their technologies for a company. If your company uses Azure technologies, the Azure Administrator Associate is a great entry-level cert that proves you’re comfortable working as a help desk analyst on Microsoft networks. Like the CCNA, if your company doesn’t use Azure or Microsoft products, a Microsoft certification probably shouldn’t be your first choice for a certification.

Salary impact of the Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate: Considerable. The Azure Administrator Associate is a good second or third certification to earn after one that’s more focused on entry-level administration. For help desk analysts with some experience already under their belt who want to advance to a higher salary, the Azure Administrator Associate certificate covers Active Directory, storage accounts, Azure virtualization, and more.

What Type of Companies Need Help Desk Analysts?

At this point, you have a sense of what competitive salaries look like for help desk analysts. You know what some of the tools and certifications are that can help advance your career. The last piece of the puzzle is what sort of company you work for. Help desk analysts are defined by being the first part of a chain of tech support.

That means that small and medium companies might not be able to support a large infrastructure. But large corporations with big networks probably can. A part of landing a help desk analyst job with a good salary is knowing what sort of industry the company works in, and what the long-term prospects are for your career.

Competitive salaries and career growth for help desk analysts depend heavily on the industry and employer type. Some companies rely on small IT teams, while others have large networks and extensive support needs. Here’s where help desk analysts are most in demand:

Help Desk Service Providers

Many businesses outsource tech support to specialized IT service companies. Help desk analysts at these firms handle first-line troubleshooting for clients.

Career impact: This position is good for entry-level experience, but salaries can be competitive, and growth is limited unless you actively seek promotions or certifications.

Service Providers (Telecom, Utilities, Streaming Services)

Companies like Netflix, Comcast, T-Mobile, and utility providers need help desk teams to assist customers and troubleshoot technical issues. 

Career impact: Strong. These companies have constant demand for help desk analysts. They also provide opportunities to move into advanced IT roles (network administrator, systems analyst) if you gain the right experience.

Military and Government

Federal, state, and local governments employ large IT support teams. Military networks also require civilian IT professionals. 

Career impact: High. While some roles are outsourced to contractors, government jobs often offer stability, benefits, and long-term career paths.

Choosing the right industry can impact salary, career advancement, and job stability—so pick one that aligns with your long-term goals.

How to Increase Your Salary as a Help Desk Analyst

A help desk analyst role is one of the most accessible entry-level IT jobs, often requiring no prior experience or degree. It’s a great starting point, offering stability, a decent salary, and room for growth.

However, like most entry-level positions, salaries can be modest. The best way to increase your earning potential is by gaining diverse experience, mastering essential IT support tools, and earning industry certifications that will set you apart. 

Ready to start studying for a help desk analyst certification? Claim your free week of CBT Nuggets training.