Computer and Information Research Scientists

At $140,300 — $90,280 a year clear of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — Computer and Information Research Scientists sits at the top of what BLS publishes. Read the gate before the figure: at this level there is always one, and it is usually measured in years.

At 37,200 employed, this is a mid-sized occupation. In a normal city that means several possible employers and a genuine market rate, which is the point at which knowing the numbers on this page starts to be worth money.

This work suits people who enjoy the debugging more than the building, because most of a career here is spent understanding systems somebody else already wrote.

We carry no verified training length for Computer and Information Research Scientists — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.

A quarter of the field earns under $103,570 and a quarter over $188,700: $85,130 between them, a ratio of 1.8x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.

The bottom quarter of this field earns $103,570 — $49.79 an hour, $53,550 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Computer and Information Research Scientists is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.

Avoid it if you want a skill set that stays valuable without maintenance — this is the field where standing still is fastest punished.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 37,200 people employed as Computer and Information Research Scientists; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.

From $103,570 to $188,700 at a ratio of 1.8x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $140,300 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.

The middle half of this field earns between $103,570 and $188,700. That is $85,130 of range, with $140,300 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.

Getting to $188,700, the 75th percentile, is worth $48,400 a year more than the $140,300 midpoint and $85,130 more than the $103,570 a quarter of Computer and Information Research Scientists settle for.

The climb from $140,300 to $188,700 is $48,400; the drop to $103,570 is $36,730. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Computer and Information Research Scientists and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.

Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $67.45 at the midpoint for Computer and Information Research Scientists, $49.79 at the 25th percentile and $90.72 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.