Side-by-side distribution
Physicist
$155,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 35.1%
- Live roles
- 37
Researcher
$160,000
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36%
- Live roles
- 1,107
Highest-paying jobs
Staff Quantum Physicist
Staff Quantum Sensor Physicist
Clinical Medical Physicist
Quantum Physicist
Divertor Plasma Physicist (Scientist/Sr. Scientist/Manager)
Clinical Affairs Specialist - Physicist / Dosimetrist
Health Physicist
Senior Physicist - Resilience Engineering & Operations
Experimental Physicist (Accelerator)
Accelerator Physicist
Highest-paying jobs
Researcher, Training - London
UX Researcher
Member of Technical Staff (AI Researcher)
Researcher, Automated Red Teaming
Researcher, Misalignment Research
Researcher, Synthetic RL
Researcher, Alignment CoT Monitorability
Researcher, Frontier Biological and Chemical Risks
Researcher, Alignment Training
Researcher, Alignment Oversight
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
Infleqtion
|
$211,000 | 3 |
|
Thea Energy
|
$130,000 | 3 |
|
Acceleron Fusion
|
$130,000 | 2 |
|
IonQ
|
$129,946 | 2 |
|
Luminis Health
|
$199,000 | 1 |
|
Helion
|
$158,000 | 1 |
|
Radformation
|
$155,000 | 1 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
OpenAI
|
$370,000 | 14 |
STR
|
$194,500 | 14 |
Egon Zehnder
|
$90,000 | 13 |
Two Six Technologies
|
$169,561 | 10 |
GiveWell
|
$308,000 | 9 |
Stevens Capital Management LP
|
$225,000 | 9 |
Arc Institute
|
$80,000 | 9 |
IMC
|
$275,000 | 8 |
Physicist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago | $211,000 | 3 |
Researcher salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore | $237,500 | 9 |
| New York | $200,000 | 98 |
| San Francisco | $200,000 | 65 |
| London | $200,000 | 17 |
| Chicago | $183,750 | 48 |
| Austin | $161,175 | 12 |
| Atlanta | $154,500 | 9 |
| Seattle | $114,400 | 5 |
| Boston | $110,000 | 15 |
| Los Angeles | $109,750 | 6 |
Physicist vs Researcher: which pays more?
The median for Physicist is $155,000 per year (typically $130,000–$170,500), versus $160,000 for Researcher ($102,366–$220,098). That puts Researcher about 3% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Physicist 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.