💡 Why it matters: Lending to people and small businesses is growing fast, especially through apps. Credit risk analysts help lenders say yes to safe loans and no to risky ones.
🌍 Around the world
- Nigeria: Lending to people and small businesses is growing fast, especially through apps.
- United States: Jobs for financial analysts, including risk specialists, are projected to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
💰 What it can pay
🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Starting out
- ₦2.2M – ₦5.5M
- Mid-career
- ₦6M – ₦15M
- Senior
- ₦15M – ₦35M
≈ ₦500k – ₦1.3M a month mid-career. Indicative estimate by Incusim.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Indicative mid-career range (our estimate, not yet checked against an official source). Incusim estimate
🇺🇸 United States
Closest US category: Financial risk specialists (part of Financial analysts). Median pay; low and high are the 10th and 90th percentiles. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025
🇨🇦 Canada
Credit analyst. Hourly wage low/median/high x 2,080 hours. Job Bank (Government of Canada), 2023-2024
Yearly pay before tax. UK, US and Canada figures come from the official sources named on each card. Nigeria has no official salary survey, so those are our indicative estimates. Real pay depends on the employer, the place, your skills and experience.
🛠️ What you actually do
- Study borrowers' income, spending and history
- Build scores that predict who will repay
- Set loan limits and interest rates
- Monitor loans that may go bad
- Report to bank leaders on overall risk
⚡ Skills you'll need
- Analysis
- Maths
- Judgement
- Excel skills
- Communication
Get ready at school
🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Data analysis courses (Excel, SQL, Python) plus a junior risk role
- FRM (Financial Risk Manager) certification later in your career
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Start as a bank or lender's credit or operations assistant
- Level 4 Data Analyst apprenticeship, then move into risk
🇺🇸 United States
- Start as a bank analyst or loan officer
- Learn Excel, SQL and Python on the job or through courses
🇨🇦 Canada
- Start at a bank or credit union in a junior credit role
- College diploma in business or finance, then work experience
🗺️ Your path to this career
- 1Do well in Maths and Economics
- 2Take a finance, statistics or economics degree
- 3Learn Excel, SQL and basic data analysis
- 4Join a bank or lender as a junior analyst
- 5Lead credit risk for a bank or lender
⏰ A day in the life
You look at the data of 500 loan applicants for a small business lender. You test a new scoring rule, find that it wrongly rejects good customers and adjust it before presenting to your manager.