Materials Scientists

At $117,790 — $67,770 a year clear of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — Materials 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.

Nationally 8,470 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Materials Scientists is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.

Physical science suits people who are content that the instrument, the sample and the funding cycle set the pace, and who find the method satisfying independent of the finding.

No verified preparation time is on file for Materials Scientists. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.

A quarter earn below $89,990 and a quarter above $150,550: a 1.7x ratio, $60,560 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.

The 25th percentile is $89,990, $39,970 above the $50,020 typical American job. When even the floor is this high, the thing to investigate is the entry requirement rather than the pay.

Avoid it if your household cannot absorb the geography — the instruments and the posts are in a small number of places.

You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 8,470 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.

A 1.7x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $117,790 as where you might be after years in Materials Scientists, and $89,990 as where you would start.

In cash terms the middle half of Materials Scientists runs $89,990 to $150,550 — $60,560 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $117,790.

The 75th percentile is $150,550. Reaching it from the $117,790 midpoint is $32,760 a year; reaching it from the $89,990 that the bottom quarter of Materials Scientists earn is $60,560.

The climb from $117,790 to $150,550 is $32,760; the drop to $89,990 is $27,800. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Materials 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 $56.62 at the midpoint for Materials Scientists, $43.26 at the 25th percentile and $72.37 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.