Side-by-side distribution
Physicist
$185,250
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 39.7%
- Live roles
- 232
Research Scientist
$170,300
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 51.5%
- Live roles
- 815
Highest-paying jobs
Sr. Medical Physicist (Palm Springs, CA)
Senior Medical Physicist Radiation Therapy
Radiation Physicist - Cabarrus Levine Cancer
Medical Physicist Oncology Senior - Levine Cancer Proton & Advanced Radiation Center
Med Physicist Oncology Sr
Physicist - Radiation Oncology
Medical Physicist - per diem
Medical Physicist - per diem
Medical Physicist
Medical Physicist
Highest-paying jobs
Staff+ Research Scientist, Multi-Agent
Research Scientist, Interpretability
Research Scientist / Research Engineer - Foundations, Search
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, RL Frontiers
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personalization
Research Scientist
Research Scientist - Environments, Data and Post-Training
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
Applied Materials
|
$164,000 | 18 |
|
Siemens Healthineers
|
$205,063 | 16 |
|
Advocate Health
|
$252,148 | 6 |
|
Albany Medical Center
|
$256,344 | 3 |
| AD AdventHealth | $231,248 | 3 |
IonQ
|
$165,000 | 3 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$101,450 | 3 |
| BU Brown University Health | $249,954 | 2 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
The University of Texas at Austin
|
$48,000 | 19 |
|
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
|
$329,250 | 9 |
| SA Scale AI | $243,000 | 8 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| London | $275,000 | 9 |
| San Francisco | $267,500 | 85 |
| New York | $243,000 | 55 |
| Seattle | $216,900 | 20 |
| Toronto | $212,000 | 8 |
| Boston | $192,500 | 25 |
| Los Angeles | $187,500 | 3 |
| Chicago | $147,566 | 4 |
| Austin | $49,864 | 10 |
Physicist vs Research Scientist: which pays more?
The median for Physicist is $185,250 per year (typically $142,500–$226,554), versus $170,300 for Research Scientist ($115,581–$243,000). That puts Physicist about 9% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Physicist 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.