Data Scientist Salary in US

Introduction

Want to become a successful data scientist, get a job in the USA, and are curious about how much data scientists make in the United States? According to recent reports, the average salary for data scientists in the USA is $100,560.

However, this number can vary depending on various factors such as experience, location, and company size.

By the way, Salary is not the only thing you should hunt for in a fantastic career.

This blog post will look closely at the Data Scientist Salary in the U.S. We will also discuss some of the best ways to increase your earning potential as a data scientist. Let’s dig in!

Various Factors On Which Data Scientist Salary Depends

Are you thinking you’ll get a handsome salary after completing your data science master’s and getting a job? Well, sorry to say, but that certainly isn’t the case.

Your salary at your data scientist job can vary widely depending on various factors. These are the factors that company HRs overlook to decide your pay range.

Here are some key factors that influence your salary as a data scientist:

Experience

That’s the inevitable truth, experience is essential, not in just a data science job but in any job you’ll ever apply for. Even though one must possess exceptional data science skills and be fully compatible to handle significant roles and tasks, the experience still plays a crucial role.

A data scientist's salary with ample years of experience is more than a data scientist's salary in us for freshers or someone with relatively lesser experience. Therefore, your salary will increase as you progress in your data scientist career.

Education

Well, that goes even without saying. The higher your education is in the field of data science, the higher you’ll get paid.

That’s why it’s essential to never stop learning, even after getting a data science job. Higher education in that relevant field will only get you a higher salary and, most importantly, growth opportunities.

Job Title

Data science is a vast field that includes many job titles with varying responsibilities.

Various job titles of data scientists in increasing authority are as follows:

• Data Science Associate
• Data Science Manager
• Data Science Senior Manager
• Staff/Principal Data Science Engineer
• Data Science Director/Group Manager
• Senior Director/VP of Data Science

It’s simple: the higher your job title, the more work pressure you’ll have, and consequently, you’ll be getting a higher salary.

Industry

Data scientists can prove helpful to almost every industry. Data Scientists can help companies to compete with and overgrow their competitors. However, the importance of Data Scientists may vary from industry to industry.

For instance, a data scientist working in the healthcare industry will always be paid less than a data scientist working in an IT industry-related firm. This is because data scientists are more in demand in IT firms than in the healthcare sector.

Company Size

Data scientists are often paid higher in bigger firms with 1000+ employees as compared to smaller firms with company sizes ranging from 50 to 500. This is because small companies have comparatively less data to analyze. Therefore there isn’t much hard work for data scientists. However, depending on the subjectivity, some startups with fewer employees might pay higher salaries due to a demanding job role.

On the other hand, in firms with large company sizes, there is a lot of data to work on, and consequently, there is more need for data scientists. Hence, they are paid higher.

Location

It may sound like a weird fact, but data scientists based in California are getting higher salaries than data scientists in other states of the US.

Data Scientist Salary in US by Level of Experience

Experience is one of the most crucial factors in deciding your data scientist job salary. As per a survey, data science professionals have an average increment of $2000 to $2,500 in their yearly salary.

Entry Level Data Scientist Salary in US: Data Scientist Salary in US, even in an initial couple of years, these data scientists are getting paid between $86,000 to $95,000 per annum.

Mid-level data scientist salary: Data scientists in the USA with a median level of experience (3 to 6 years) are earning an average salary ranging from $130,000 to $195,000 depending on their performance in a supervisory role.

Highly experienced data scientist salary: Experienced data science professionals in the USA with more than 6-7 years of experience in data science are getting paid an average salary of around $165,000 with managerial roles data scientists even get up to $250,000.

Data Scientist Salary in US By Level Of Education

Data science is an enormous field, and data science is undoubtedly one of the highest in-demand jobs at the moment. While data scientists with a Ph.D. in data science are quite less, many hold a master’s degree. In fact, around 88% of data scientists are master’s degree holders, while only 46% of data scientists have PhDs.

If we talk about the most crucial and sought skill in a data scientist, it has to be programming or coding. Data scientists have to code programs and algorithms to analyze massive data regularly.

In the USA,

• Data scientists with a bachelor’s degree in data science get an average salary of $104,000 per year.
• Data scientists with a Master’s degree in data science get an average salary of $165,000 per year.
• Data scientists holding a Ph.D. in data science are getting as much as $215,000 per year.

Data Scientist Salary in US by Job Title

Your salary as a data scientist also varies highly based on your role and job title. As stated above, the higher your job title, the higher your salary will be.

Salary variation based on role profile:

Data Analyst

The average salary for an entry-level data analyst working in the USA is $50,000 to $75,000.

In contrast, the average salary for an experienced data science professional with a data analyst job role is around $65,000 to $110,000.

Data Science Manager

Data science professionals in the USA with managerial job roles earn an average salary of $90,000 to $140,000 per year.

Senior Data Engineer

Senior data engineers with domain expertise in the USA earn an average salary of $100,000 to $165,000 annually.

Data Scientist Salary in US by Industry and Company Size

Different industries pay you differently as per their demand. For instance, sectors such as finance, cloud services, IT, and social networking have great demand for data scientists, and consequently, they pay handsome salaries to data scientists.

Let’s look at the average salary of some of the world's top firms.

Twitter: $135,360

Facebook: $134,715

Apple: $145,974

Airbnb: $127,852

Google: $152,856

Microsoft: $123,328

PayPal: $132,909

Talking about average salary as per the company size, companies with a higher number of employees (1000+) offer a higher salary to data scientists as compared to companies with a lower number of employees.

Data Scientist Salary in US by Region

Data scientist salaries in the USA vary significantly as per the location.

For example, data scientists in California earn the highest salary than data scientists with simpler job roles in any other region of the US.

Data scientist salary as per the various region of the USA

Data Scientist Salary in US By Level Of Skill

The level of skills you possess as a data scientist highly influences your data scientist salary package. An ideal data scientist should possess proficient programming skills, strong communication skills, analytical skills, data handling skills, and many such crucial skills.

A data scientist must know the major programming languages such as Python and R. This would enable them to code programs and algorithms for analyzing big data.

All in all, the higher level of skills you have, the higher you'll be earning as a data scientist. Apart from the above factors that majorly influence a Data Scientist’s Salary. We have also an interview guide to help you stay adept as a Data Scientist.

Future Scope of Data Science

As data becomes increasingly central to our lives, the demand for data scientists is only going to grow, and it will remain the sexiest job of the 21st century!

Data science is still a relatively new field, and there is a lot of opportunity for growth and development.

In the future, data science will become increasingly specialized, with experts focusing on specific niches within the field. For example, we will see more data scientists specializing in healthcare or financial data.

There will also be a greater need for data scientists who have strong computer programming skills. As we rely more on data, the role of the data scientist will become even more essential.

Are you also thinking about becoming a data scientist? You are certainly making the right choice, but are you on the right path?

Check out Scaler’s Data Science Course to kickstart your data science career journey.