Clinical Data Manager job description
54 verified openings in Health IT & Informatics
Clinical data managers work the database side of health care, analyzing clinical data and identifying and reporting the trends in it. BLS does not break them out on their own; it counts them in the data scientists line, SOC 15-2051. Its May 2025 figures: $120,230 as the median wage across 262,440 workers, $67,240 for the lowest-paid tenth, $199,130 for the highest. Those figures cover data scientists of every kind, so the clinical corner is one slice of a wide band. Reported titles run from clinical data manager through clinical informatics manager to data management director.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
Building the database comes first: designing and validating clinical databases, and writing the logic checks that test them. After that the work follows the study's data: receiving, entering, verifying, and filing it, then raising queries against whatever the validation checks throw up so errors get resolved at the source. Managers also write the data management plan a project runs on, covering coding, reporting, transfer, database locks, and workflow, and they settle release formats, delivery schedules, and testing protocols with the people who use the data.
Common Skills and Technologies
Complex problem solving, mathematics, and programming all appear on the skill list beside critical thinking, unusual company for a health care title. MEDITECH and Epic Systems cover the clinical side, Microsoft Access and SQL Server the databases, SharePoint and Visio the documents and process maps, IBM SPSS Statistics the analysis, and C#, C++, Java, Visual Basic, Go, and XML the development end.
Education, Training, and Career Path
Nearly all of this workforce went to a four-year school: 85 percent report a bachelor's degree. A scattering of associate degrees, later certificates, and master's makes up the rest. The degree alone does not open the door: Job Zone 4 puts years of practice behind it. Promotion runs deeper into the same stack, toward data management manager and director titles; the related occupations point sideways, to health informatics specialist, biostatistician, and bioinformatics technician.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 15-2051.02 Clinical Data Managers, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-2051.02. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 15-2051, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes152051.htm.