Side-by-side distribution
Mathematician
$156,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 44.4%
- Live roles
- 9
Research Scientist
$171,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 51.5%
- Live roles
- 813
Highest-paying jobs
Statistician and Mathematician
Fixed Income Division – Associate, Applied Mathematician - Electronic Trading & Quantitative Finance (New York)
Mathematician Manager
Boeing Engineering & Technology Innovation Graduate Researcher Program, Applied Mathematician Intern
Highest-paying jobs
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, RL Frontiers
Staff+ Research Scientist, Multi-Agent
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Scientist / Research Engineer - Foundations, Search
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, Health
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Memory
Research Scientist - Environments, Data and Post-Training
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personalization
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| MS Morgan Stanley | $175,000 | 1 |
|
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$162,000 | 1 |
|
Aristocrat
|
$150,000 | 1 |
| BO Boeing | $84,000 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
The University of Texas at Austin
|
$46,500 | 18 |
|
Anthropic
|
$425,000 | 13 |
|
OpenAI
|
$440,000 | 12 |
Astera Institute
|
$177,500 | 11 |
Anduril Industries
|
$221,000 | 10 |
UL Research Institutes
|
$128,747 | 10 |
MSD
|
$245,550 | 9 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 8 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| London | $275,000 | 9 |
| San Francisco | $262,500 | 85 |
| New York | $243,000 | 56 |
| Seattle | $216,900 | 20 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 9 |
| Los Angeles | $187,500 | 4 |
| Boston | $181,000 | 25 |
| Chicago | $147,566 | 4 |
| Austin | $49,864 | 10 |
Mathematician vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Mathematician is $156,000 per year (typically $133,500–$165,250), versus $171,000 for Research Scientist ($116,000–$242,950). That puts Research Scientist about 10% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Mathematician 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.