Side-by-side distribution
Research Scientist
$170,300
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 52.1%
- Live roles
- 833
Researcher
$106,450
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 36.3%
- Live roles
- 3,534
Highest-paying jobs
Research Engineer/Research Scientist, Pre-training
Research Scientist / Research Engineer, Search - Knowledge Graphs
Staff+ Research Scientist, Multi-Agent
Research Scientist / Research Engineer, Search Integrity
Research Engineer / Research Scientist, RL Frontiers
Research Scientist / Research Engineer - Foundations, Search
Research Scientist, Interpretability
[Expression of Interest] Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment - London
Research Engineer / Research Scientist - Personal AGI, Personalization
Research Scientist - Environments, Data and Post-Training
Highest-paying jobs
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Quant Platform Engineer
Senior Clinical Research Associate - Oncology (US)
Researcher, Training
Researcher, Training - London
Researcher, Safety Training, National Security
Researcher, Misalignment Monitoring Lead
Researcher, Multimodal Safety
Researcher, Alignment
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
The University of Texas at Austin
|
$45,000 | 20 |
|
Anthropic
|
$388,750 | 14 |
|
OpenAI
|
$440,000 | 13 |
MSD
|
$287,400 | 12 |
Astera Institute
|
$177,500 | 11 |
UL Research Institutes
|
$128,747 | 10 |
Anduril Industries
|
$192,000 | 9 |
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
|
$149,500 | 9 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| NU Northeastern University | $72,754 | 72 |
|
The University of Texas at Austin
|
$53,500 | 40 |
IQVIA
|
$130,450 | 38 |
| WC Worldwide Clinical Trials | $145,000 | 35 |
ICON plc
|
$124,335 | 24 |
| SJ St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | $72,530 | 22 |
USC
|
$71,618 | 20 |
| MG Mass General Brigham | $70,875 | 20 |
Research Scientist salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | $262,000 | 91 |
| London | $257,000 | 10 |
| New York | $243,000 | 56 |
| Seattle | $213,800 | 19 |
| Toronto | $199,750 | 10 |
| Los Angeles | $187,500 | 4 |
| Boston | $181,000 | 29 |
| Chicago | $147,500 | 4 |
| Austin | $48,000 | 9 |
Research Scientist vs Researcher: which pays more?
The median for Research Scientist is $170,300 per year (typically $116,000–$242,988), versus $106,450 for Researcher ($72,754–$165,000). That puts Research Scientist about 60% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Research Scientist 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.