Data entry jobs might evoke mental images of administrative assistants, transcriptionists, or customer service professions. While these roles are undoubtedly necessary, many are being replaced—or at risk of being replaced—by artificial intelligence.
Fortunately, there are other rewarding jobs within data entry and management, that not only come with the benefit of being performed remotely, but they offer some of the highest salaries and are virtually irreplaceable by AI.
These are not your run-of-the-mill data entry jobs. These roles require specialized education, skills, and expertise, which contribute significantly to increasing your value in the job market, and consequently, your earning potential.
1. Research Assistant
A research assistant’s primary role is to support the research efforts of academics or scientists. Amongst other things, they collect data through various methods such as surveys, browsing archives, literature reviews, and experiments. They also input their collected data into databases or other statistical software and conduct data analysis. Some of these roles may require onsite work, but there are plenty of research assistant jobs that are remote and can be performed from home.
Additionally, some aspect of your role as a research assistant may involve project management to some degree, and you may need to present your findings at research conferences and in papers.
To be a research assistant, you’ll need:
- Passion for your chosen field of research
- Minimum of an undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline, within the social sciences or STEM for example
- Proficiency in data analysis
- Hands-on laboratory skills
- Technical skills for specialized software
Average salary: $232,604
2. Financial Analyst
While not the primary focus of a financial analyst’s job, data entry and collection still plays a critical role in their work. As a financial analyst, your role would necessarily involve inputting financial data to help you form your analysis, maintaining data integrity, and pulling data such as market trends and macroeconomic indicators from various sources such as reports and databases.
- Bachelor’s degree in relevant financial discipline, i.e. economics
- Sometimes a postgraduate degree or qualification can be a helpful boost in securing this role
- Chartered Financial Analyst certification beneficial
- Data analysis
- Technical skills for financial and data modelling software
Average salary: $65,797
3. Data Scientist
This high-paying role consists of advanced data analysis and modeling, and data cleaning to prepare the raw data for analysis. Occasionally you might be updating data records or data dictionaries as part of your workflow, tagging data points for input when training machine learning models, or performing quality assurance checks, to ensure data integrity .
- Bachelor’s degree in relevant field such as mathematics, statistics, or computer science as a minimum
- Master’s degree to enhance job prospects
- Extra certifications in machine learning, and programming languages such as Python, SQL, etc. can provide a significant boost to your job search
- Experience in data processing and modeling
- Analytical thinking and problem-solving skills
Average salary: $119,864
So, data entry might not be as simple as you think. Beyond regular administrative jobs, why not upskill yourself and take your role a step further into research, analysis, or data science?