Physical Scientists, All Other

$122,570 puts Physical Scientists, All Other among the highest medians BLS publishes, roughly 145% above the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Pay at this level always has a gate in front of it: a residency, a bar exam, a clearance, or a decade.

22,300 people do this work nationally. That is the size at which Physical Scientists, All Other becomes a career rather than a post — enough employers in a normal city that leaving one of them is a decision rather than a crisis.

These roles suit people who want to work on physical systems at a level of rigour that industry rarely funds, and who accept the career shape that comes with that.

No verified preparation time is on file for Physical Scientists, All Other. 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 of the field earns under $86,620 and a quarter over $161,890: $75,270 between them, a ratio of 1.9x. 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 $86,620 — $41.64 an hour, $36,600 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Physical Scientists, All Other is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.

Avoid it if you cannot follow the work geographically; the facilities are where they are.

You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 22,300 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.

At 1.9x, the distribution for Physical Scientists, All Other is open enough that specialisation starts to pay. The distance from $86,620 to $161,890 is mostly what you can do that others in the same title cannot.

In cash terms the middle half of Physical Scientists, All Other runs $86,620 to $161,890 — $75,270 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $122,570.

Getting to $161,890, the 75th percentile, is worth $39,320 a year more than the $122,570 midpoint and $75,270 more than the $86,620 a quarter of Physical Scientists, All Other settle for.

$35,950 down to $86,620, $39,320 up to $161,890: the midpoint of Physical Scientists, All Other is centred in its own middle half. That symmetry is why the median and the average would say much the same thing here, which is not true of most pages on this site.

Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $41.64 at the bottom quarter, $58.92 at the midpoint, $77.83 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.