Side-by-side distribution
Chemist
$78,260
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 28.3%
- Live roles
- 247
Researcher
$110,142
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 34.9%
- Live roles
- 3,307
Highest-paying jobs
Clinical Chemist
Medicinal Chemist
Senior Materials Chemist
Polymer Chemist/Plating Expert
Process Chemist
DARPA SETA Physical Chemist/Materials Scientist SME
Computational Chemist (Machine Learning) I / II
Computational Chemist - GPU Acceleration
Computational Synthetic Chemist
R&D Polymer Chemist
Highest-paying jobs
Research Fellow
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Researcher, Training
Researcher, Training - London
Vice President, Quantitative Researcher, Infrastructure & Real Assets
Researcher, Alignment Interpretability
Researcher, Alignment CoT Monitorability
Researcher, Robustness & Safety Training
Researcher, Multimodal Safety
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Republic Services
|
$78,333 | 7 |
Abbott
|
$59,488 | 6 |
Cardinal Health
|
$73,304 | 4 |
| IT ITW | $104,500 | 3 |
|
Amentum
|
$80,000 | 3 |
Mitsubishi Chemical Group
|
$56,160 | 3 |
Veolia
|
$40,593 | 3 |
PPG
|
$103,875 | 2 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
The University of Texas at Austin
|
$47,500 | 39 |
| NU Northeastern University | $72,754 | 34 |
| WC Worldwide Clinical Trials | $145,000 | 28 |
IQVIA
|
$128,250 | 27 |
ICON plc
|
$124,335 | 26 |
USC
|
$71,892 | 25 |
| MG Mass General Brigham | $70,875 | 21 |
| BN Brookhaven National Laboratory | $81,175 | 18 |
Chemist vs Researcher: which pays more?
The median for Chemist is $78,260 per year (typically $63,960–$105,660), versus $110,142 for Researcher ($74,500–$175,000). That puts Researcher about 41% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Chemist and Researcher 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.