Side-by-side distribution
Data Scientist
$190,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 42.4%
- Live roles
- 1,661
MLOps
$187,500
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 18.8%
- Live roles
- 128
Highest-paying jobs
Data Scientist
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Senior Data Scientist (Credit)
Data Scientist, Identity
Applied Scientist, Experimentation
Data Scientist
Data Scientist, Supply
Data Scientist, Developer Productivity
Machine Learning Scientist
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Machine Learning Engineer, DevOps/SRE
Staff Machine Learning Operations Engineer
Senior Data Engineer, MLOps [Remote-US]
Senior, ML Engineer - ML Ops Framework
Senior, ML Engineer - ML Ops Framework
Senior Machine Learning Operations Engineer
Staff ML/LLM Ops Engineer
Sr. Machine Learning Ops Engineer
DoD MLOps Software Engineer
Sr. Machine Learning Ops Engineer
Launch Potato
Lyft
Pinterest
Roblox
Reddit
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Garner Health
|
$297,500 | 2 |
|
Torc Robotics
|
$249,000 | 2 |
|
Quanata
|
$256,500 | 1 |
|
Roku
|
$254,875 | 1 |
|
LVT
|
$242,650 | 1 |
|
Hayden AI
|
$230,000 | 1 |
Instacart
|
$212,750 | 1 |
|
Cimgroup
|
$200,000 | 1 |
Data Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $211,819 | 161 |
| New York | $190,000 | 138 |
| Seattle | $188,750 | 46 |
| Austin | $187,500 | 9 |
| Denver | $187,500 | 6 |
| Los Angeles | $183,750 | 16 |
| Boston | $181,250 | 30 |
| London | $160,895 | 21 |
| Toronto | $153,600 | 28 |
| Chicago | $153,300 | 21 |
Data Scientist vs MLOps: which pays more?
The median for Data Scientist is $190,000 per year (typically $150,000–$229,900), versus $187,500 for MLOps ($147,500–$236,325). That puts Data Scientist about 1% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Data Scientist and MLOps 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.