Statisticians

$105,650 is $4,635 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Statisticians are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.

With 29,030 employed as Statisticians, most metros have a working market: several employers, visible turnover, and the ability to change jobs without moving house.

Mathematical science work suits people who are willing to be the person who says the estimate is uncertain, and who can explain why to an audience that wanted a single number.

How long it takes to become one of the 29,030 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.

A quarter of the field earns under $82,220 and a quarter over $141,490: $59,270 between them, a ratio of 1.7x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.

Even at the 25th percentile Statisticians pays $82,220, $32,200 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.

Avoid it if you need your conclusions accepted; a large part of this job is being overruled by someone who preferred a different number.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 29,030 people employed as Statisticians; 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.

At 1.7x, the distribution for Statisticians is open enough that specialisation starts to pay. The distance from $82,220 to $141,490 is mostly what you can do that others in the same title cannot.

The middle half of this field earns between $82,220 and $141,490. That is $59,270 of range, with $105,650 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.

The 75th percentile is $141,490. Reaching it from the $105,650 midpoint is $35,840 a year; reaching it from the $82,220 that the bottom quarter of Statisticians earn is $59,270.

The climb from $105,650 to $141,490 is $35,840, against $23,430 down to $82,220. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Statisticians is larger than the realistic downside.

On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Statisticians is $50.79 an hour. The quarters sit at $39.52 and $68.02, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.