Application DBAs: Salary, career path, job outlook, education and more

Application DBAs support a database that has been designed for a specific application or a set of applications, such as customer-service software. Using complex programming languages, they may write or debug programs and must be able to manage the applications that work with the database. They also do all the tasks of a general DBA, but only for their particular application.

Education Required
Most database administrators have a bachelors degree in an information- or computer-related subject such as computer science. Firms with large databases may prefer applicants who have a masters degree focusing on data or database management, typically either in computer science, information systems, or information technology.
Job Outlook
The projected percent change in employment from 2016 to 2026: 11% (Faster than average)
(The average growth rate for all occupations is 7 percent.)
Advancement
Database administrators can advance to become computer and information systems managers.
Licenses/Certifications
Certification is generally offered directly from software vendors or vendor-neutral certification providers. Certification validates the knowledge and best practices required from DBAs. Companies may require their database administrators to be certified in the products they use.
Median pay: How much do Database Administrators make?
$84,950 Annual Salary
$40.84 per hour

Careers for Database Administrators

  • Application database administrators
  • Automatic data processing planners
  • DBAs
  • DBMS specialists
  • Database administration managers
  • Database coordinators
  • Database management system specialists
  • Database security administrators
  • System DBAs
  • System database administrators

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