Data Governance Analyst Job Description Template 2026

Last updated: November 13, 2026

By Robert Ardell, Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, KORE1

A data governance analyst job description should state the data domains in scope, how many critical data elements still lack an owner, which catalog tool the hire inherits and whether it is being retired, and a base-pay range. Most postings skip all four and ask for a master’s degree instead, which screens out the people who learned governance inside claims, finance, or compliance.

On November 12, Microsoft put an end date on Purview Data Governance. By lunch a good number of job postings were stale, and nobody had told the people who wrote them.

Here’s one, a composite of two intake calls from this fall, details changed. A third-party administrator for self-funded health plans in Omaha, about 650 people, posted a data governance analyst role in September. Three years with Microsoft Purview. Bachelor’s degree, master’s preferred. “Strong stakeholder management.” The ability to “support compliance initiatives.” No pay range. Nobody had asked finance for one. Two hundred twelve people applied in three weeks, and the director of data sent four of them to us with something close to an apology. Four out of 212.

What they actually had was a backlog, and a big one. Thirty-one source systems once you counted the claims platform, eligibility feeds from roughly 400 employer groups, and four broker portals, plus a catalog that had scanned about a third of them and an “active member” count that meant one thing to claims, another to eligibility, and a third to the call center, with all three numbers reaching the board in different decks. Around 1,100 warehouse columns were flagged as protected health information. Perhaps ninety had an owner. Access requests came in by email, fifteen or so a week. Whoever noticed first answered. Nobody was careless. Nobody owned it.

That was the job. The posting described a catalog login.

The rewrite took an afternoon and a spreadsheet. Thirty-one systems, a third scanned, three definitions, 1,100 columns, fifteen requests a week, all of it went in. It named HIPAA and a SOC 2 Type II audit due in the spring, and it printed $115,000 to $135,000, a range finance approved in about ten minutes once somebody finally asked. The second posting pulled 38 applications and 11 phone calls. They hired a senior analyst from a regional health plan at $124,000, and her first deliverable was a one-page definition of an active member. It took two meetings to approve. Everyone called that fast.

Who’s writing, since it matters. KORE1 runs a data governance analyst staffing desk and gets paid when a client hires someone we sent, so a posting that fills itself costs us a search, and I’d still rather you wrote a good one than spent three weeks sorting 212 applications for the four worth a call. The search itself, with real pay bands and a screen that works, is in our guide to hiring a data governance analyst. This page is about the posting.

What a Data Governance Analyst Posting Is Actually Hiring For

A data governance analyst writes and enforces the rules for how a company defines, classifies, owns, secures, and retires its data. The output is a decision someone has to follow, such as who may see a table, what “active customer” means, or how long call recordings are kept.

Postings for this seat get mistaken for five neighbors. Someone who spent six years building dashboards isn’t applying to write a retention rule, and nothing in your ad warned them they’d be asked to, so the first month of applications is mostly people who guessed wrong.

The data analyst is the neighbor that trips up the most postings. A company with a good senior analyst and a messy glossary posts “data analyst, governance focus” and crosses its fingers. Sometimes that holds. A senior analyst can carry a small company’s definitions for a couple of years next to the real job, and the template linked above covers that seat, but once the real verbs are define, approve, and retire, it’s this posting you need.

Count the Inventory Before You List a Single Duty

Count things. It’s the cheapest way to make a governance posting specific, and candidates will ask for the numbers on the first call anyway. Most of the answers sit in a system your team already runs.

Print three, not seven. Fewer is better. Pick the ones that make your seat different from the one down the street and keep the rest for the phone call. The owner count surprises people. Admitting that ninety of 1,100 columns have a name beside them reads as honest, and the strong candidates see an obvious first year. Honest beats polished.

Totals are safe to publish. Locations and account names aren’t. No warehouse hostnames, and nobody’s name next to the approval step.

The Catalog Names That Changed This Year

Governance postings lean on tool names harder than most, and several of those names changed in the past year or so. Copy a posting from 2024 and you can end up naming a product that’s gone, renamed, or on a clock. Easy mistake.

Microsoft’s is the big one. On November 12, 2026, Microsoft told partners that Purview Data Governance is being retired, with end of support by November 12, 2027. The retirement covers the Unified Catalog, Data Map, and Workflows. Microsoft’s own Unified Catalog documentation says governance is consolidating in Microsoft Fabric, that new accounts can no longer be created, and that existing capabilities stay in maintenance mode until the same date. Purview’s data security and compliance products are unchanged.

If your catalog is Purview, the seat you’re posting is a migration job with a deadline. The ad may not say so. The work will. Put it in the title. “Data Governance Analyst, Purview to Fabric Transition (2027)” draws the handful of people who have moved a catalog before, and it repels the ones who only know how to operate one. A fixed end date is also a natural fit for contract staffing, with the permanent owner hired once the new catalog is live and the old one has been switched off for long enough that nobody misses it.

Google’s change was quieter. Data Catalog was discontinued on June 1, 2026. Its replacement now goes by Knowledge Catalog, which Google’s documentation calls the former Dataplex Universal Catalog. Three names, one lineage. Someone with three years on Google’s catalog may have used all three without changing jobs. Amazon moved DataZone’s governance features under Amazon SageMaker Catalog, built on DataZone and reached through SageMaker Unified Studio. Informatica now belongs to Salesforce, which completed the acquisition on November 18, 2025.

So what goes in the ad? The tool you run today, its status, and the one you expect to run next. Then ask for the skill, not the product. A strong analyst picks up a new catalog in a few weeks.

Name the Rule That Forces the Hire, and Check Its Date

“Support compliance initiatives” is the weakest line in most governance postings. It names nothing. A regulation with a date makes a candidate sit up, and a wrong date is worse than none.

The stale date I see most this year belongs to the EU AI Act. Some postings and vendor pages still say high-risk obligations start on August 2, 2026. They don’t. The Digital Omnibus on AI is now in force, and as Orrick’s summary of the final text puts it, Annex III high-risk obligations now take effect on December 2, 2027, and systems covered by existing EU harmonization legislation follow on August 2, 2028. Article 10, the data and data governance article, is still in the Act. The clock is what moved. Check yours.

Our rule for clients is simple. A regulation goes in the posting with its current date and current scope, checked against a primary summary in the month you post. And if nobody can say which regulation is driving the hire, stop. Take that question back to whoever approved the headcount before you write another word. For seats that exist mostly because of AI projects, our AI governance staffing page covers the neighboring contract roles. Once applicants arrive, interview questions built on a late deletion request give the panel something harder than definitions to ask.

Data Governance Analyst Job Description Template

Swap each bracket for a real answer. Parenthetical notes are yours. Delete them before the posting goes live. If a bracket stumps you, ask whoever runs the catalog.

Job Title

[Data Governance Analyst / Senior Data Governance Analyst / Data Governance Analyst, Catalog Transition (2027) / Data Governance Analyst, Healthcare] (Put the deadline in the title if the catalog has one.)

About the Role

[Company] [does what] for [customers]. You’ll write and enforce the rules for how [Company] defines, classifies, and shares its data, starting with [the member and claims domains / customer and finance data]. You’ll work with [N] data stewards and domain owners and report to [role]. The job is [on site in (city) / hybrid, (N) days a week in (city) / remote within (states or time zones)].

The Data You’ll Govern

• [N] source systems, [N] in scope for year one, including [claims, eligibility, CRM, finance]
• [N] critical data elements, about [N] with a named owner today
• A catalog in [Collibra / Alation / Atlan / Informatica / Microsoft Purview (retiring, with end of support November 12, 2027) / Microsoft Fabric OneLake catalog / Knowledge Catalog / Amazon SageMaker Catalog / none yet], covering about [percent] of in-scope sources
• [N] definitions in dispute, starting with [term]
• About [N] data access requests a week, handled through [a ticket queue / email / a workflow in (tool)]
• Regulations and audits in force, [HIPAA / GLBA / CCPA / SOC 2 Type II / (name each, with its date)]

What You’ll Do

• Write and maintain the [business glossary / classification scheme / retention schedule], and get each entry approved by its [domain owner]
• Run the access-approval path for [classified tables], including the [N] requests a week
• Document lineage for the [N] critical data elements that feed [board reporting / regulatory filings]
• Settle competing definitions by [running the decision, recording who made it, and publishing both versions until it lands]
• Train and support [N] data stewards named from [claims / finance / operations]
• [Plan and run the move from (retiring catalog) to (replacement) before (date)] (Delete this line if nothing you run is retiring.)
• Report [monthly] to [role] on owner coverage, catalog coverage, and open exceptions
• [Document where AI training data came from and who approved its use]

What You Can Decide

You decide [access requests for data classified (internal) or lower, retention periods within the legal schedule, and which of two competing definitions is published as the standard]. You escalate [disputes between two vice presidents and any request touching (PHI / cardholder data)] to [role]. (Write this section even if it’s two sentences. Candidates ask about it early. Our hiring guide explains why it matters for the pay band too.)

What We’re Looking For

• [3+ / 5+] years in data governance, data management, compliance, or a data-heavy function such as [claims / finance / clinical data / internal audit]
• You’ve stood up or run a business glossary or catalog and can say what got adopted and what didn’t
• SQL good enough to read a query and check a definition against the data
• Comfortable telling a senior person no, in writing, with the reason
• Working knowledge of [HIPAA / GLBA / CCPA / GDPR] as it applies to [domain]
• [Experience with (catalog), or with any enterprise data catalog] (Ask for the skill, not the product.)

Nice to Have

• Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) from DAMA International at any level, or [a privacy credential such as the IAPP’s CIPP/US, if the seat is privacy-heavy]
• [A completed move of a catalog or glossary between platforms]
• [Background in (claims, clinical data, regulatory reporting, or master data management)]

Pay and Benefits

The base salary range for this role is $[low] to $[high], [plus (bonus target)]. Where an offer lands in the range depends on [experience and location]. Benefits include [medical, dental, and vision / 401(k) with (match) / (N) days of paid time off / a certification and training budget]. (Print a real range. Several states require one, and a few made the rule stricter this year.)

How to Apply

[Apply link or contact]. [Company] is an equal opportunity employer. To request a reasonable accommodation during the process, contact [name or address].

Certifications and the Degree Line

Certifications come up on every intake call. Short answer. Nice, not necessary. DAMA International’s Certified Data Management Professional is the one with real substance behind it, and it comes in three levels, Associate, Practitioner, and Master. Put it under nice-to-have. It shows somebody studied the discipline. It can’t show they’ll hold a line against a vice president who wants an exception, and no certificate I know of tests that.

Then the degree line. “Master’s preferred” sits on most governance postings we see. It quietly removes people who came up through claims, regulatory reporting, clinical data, or internal audit, and plenty of strong governance analysts started in exactly those chairs, which is where I’d look first if the pipeline of titled governance analysts in your city is thin. Ask for years and proof of adoption instead. If your HR system insists on a degree field, “bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience” costs nothing.

What to Print for Pay, and Which States Make You

Three trackers read the same title and can’t agree. Glassdoor’s data governance analyst page says $147,339. ZipRecruiter says $113,939. Salary.com says about $70,000. Call it a $77,000 spread on a single title, up from roughly $62,000 when we checked in August, which says less about the market than about how many different jobs hide under three words. We read these trackers again against the federal wage lines in our salary guide for data governance analysts.

Salary.com is mostly describing a coordinator. Glassdoor is describing someone who sets policy. Same three words in both postings, which is why we anchor a band to the mandate and skip the title. On our desk, the seat that owns the policy and settles disputes between departments usually lands between $120,000 and $155,000, while the seat that only documents someone else’s policy sits below it, a difference our hiring guide spends a whole section on. Our salary benchmark assistant will check a number against a live market before you commit.

Then there’s the law. Several states now require the range in the posting, and four have changed their rules on a schedule that runs from July 2026 to September 2027. Cooley’s summary has the detail. Virginia’s rule started July 1, 2026, and it covers employers of any size. Maine’s followed on July 29 for employers with 10 or more employees. Connecticut’s expanded rule starts October 1, 2026, and it adds a general description of benefits to the range. Delaware waits until September 26, 2027, and covers employers with more than 25 employees. Dates matter.

Virginia also weighs how wide the range is when it judges good faith. Print $70,000 to $160,000 and you’re inviting an argument. I’d print $20,000 to $30,000 of room and mean it. A $60,000 spread tells a candidate the company hasn’t decided what the job is.

Questions We Get Before a Governance Posting Goes Up

We already have a data analyst. Can the posting just add “governance”?

Only if the analyst’s real work stays reporting. Once the verbs become define, approve, and retire, you’re posting a different seat, and it needs its own description.

Bolting a governance line onto an analyst posting pulls analysts who hope to learn it and repels governance people who spot the dashboard duties. It goes wrong both ways. Our data analyst posting template covers the version that stays an analyst seat with a little stewardship attached.

Do we name Collibra, Alation, or Purview in the requirements?

Name your tool in the section about what the hire inherits, and ask for experience with any enterprise catalog in the requirements. Product-specific lines shrink the pool for no return.

If the tool is Purview, say the retirement date too. A candidate who sees “Purview” and nothing else will assume a stable seat for five years. They’ll find the announcement within a day of accepting. Better they find it in your posting.

Purview is our catalog. Do we rewrite the posting this week?

This month is soon enough, because Microsoft’s end of support is November 12, 2027, but any posting that goes out from here on should say so.

Existing hires are harder. An analyst hired in 2025 to run a Purview catalog now owns a migration, and the job they accepted isn’t quite the job they have. A short note from their manager about the new scope costs nothing, and it heads off an awkward coffee in February.

How many years of experience should the posting ask for?

Three to five for an analyst working inside someone else’s policy, and six or more for one who writes the policy, runs the council, and settles disputes between departments that don’t report to the same executive.

Count years in governance, data management, or a data-heavy function like claims or internal audit. And skip “10+ years of data governance.” The title is younger than that at most companies, and the people with a decade behind them are usually managers by now.

Does the posting need a degree line or a certification?

Neither. “Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience” is enough, and a CDMP belongs in the nice-to-have list.

One exception. If a customer contract names a credential for whoever touches the data, it goes in the requirements. Quote the clause.

What range do we print if the budget isn’t set yet?

Set the budget first.

Virginia requires the range to be set in good faith by reference to a pay scale, a prior range, equivalent-position salaries, or the budgeted amount, and Maine and Connecticut have their own versions of the same idea. A range invented the night before the posting goes live is the version that causes trouble later, when an offer comes in outside it.

Before the Posting Goes Live

Read it once the way a candidate would. Slowly. If the same ad could run at any company with three words changed, it isn’t finished. Add the counts. Add the catalog and its date, the regulation and its date, and the number.

Want another set of eyes? Send the draft to our recruiters and we’ll tell you which of the neighboring seats it reads like. We average 17 days to fill across our IT desks, and 92 percent of the people we place are still in the job a year later. Neither number helps if the posting describes a job you don’t have. Building the program on a short contract and hiring the owner afterward works. So does direct hire staffing from day one, once the program is funded past year one.