Side-by-side distribution
Chemist
$140,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 30%
- Live roles
- 30
Research Scientist
$220,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 55%
- Live roles
- 411
Highest-paying jobs
Medicinal Chemist
Senior Materials Chemist
Computational Chemist (Machine Learning) I / II
Computational Chemist - GPU Acceleration
Computational Synthetic Chemist
Mass Spectrometry Chemist
7.1. R&D Analytical Chemist
Analytical Chemist I
Product Safety Chemist (Part-Time)
Highest-paying jobs
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Scientist, Takeoff Intel
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Principal Research Scientist, Robot Foundation Model
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Staff / Principal Research Scientist - USA
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personalization
Research Scientist, APEX Benchmarks
Research Scientist
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Memory
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Inductive Bio
|
$230,000 | 1 |
|
Helion
|
$218,000 | 1 |
|
Aralez Bio
|
$172,500 | 1 |
|
PsiQuantum
|
$165,100 | 1 |
|
Ginkgo Bioworks Inc.
|
$140,000 | 1 |
|
General Matter
|
$125,000 | 1 |
|
Phoenix Tailings
|
$80,000 | 1 |
|
Pegasus Laboratories, Inc.
|
$70,200 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
OpenAI
|
$440,000 | 14 |
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 12 |
|
Anthropic
|
$425,000 | 11 |
Astera Institute
|
$173,750 | 10 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 8 |
| LS Lila Sciences | $240,000 | 7 |
Waabi
|
$212,750 | 6 |
Applied Intuition
|
$274,500 | 5 |
Chemist vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Chemist is $140,000 per year (typically $80,000–$172,500), versus $220,000 for Research Scientist ($169,350–$282,618). That puts Research Scientist about 57% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Chemist and Research Scientist are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.