Research Scientist salary
Computed from the stated pay ranges of 587 Research Scientist listings we ingested in the last 90 days - not a survey, not a model. Base salary only; bonus and variable pay are quoted too inconsistently to publish.
- 587 priced listings
- Rolling 90-day window
- Updated Sep 10, 2026
$80k
Half of Research Scientist listings pay more than this, half pay less.
Scale runs $0k–$1,000k. Bar spans the middle 50% of listings.
One median hides a wide role.
“Research Scientist” covers very different jobs at very different scales under one title. The spread below is real - it is the shape of what employers are posting, not noise in the data.
Each listing counts once, at the midpoint of its stated range. Columns are on the same scale as the hero.
Read off the sorted midpoints with percentile_cont, interpolating between neighbours where it falls between two.
Every number here, traced.
We matched 587 listings to this title in the last 90 days that state an annual base range. Listings without one are excluded entirely.
Each listing contributes its pay midpoint - one value, one vote. A wide range doesn’t get extra weight.
587 clears the 5-listing threshold, so the median is published. Roles that don’t clear it say so instead of showing a number.
Postings age out of the window automatically - nothing is carried forward. See our data commitments.
Research Scientist - 587 priced listings, sorted by midpoint ($k).
All 587 midpoints, sorted
Too many listings to print here - the arithmetic below runs over all 587 of them.
587 values, so the median is the 294th - read straight off the list, with nothing interpolated. Every chip is one listing from the last 90 days that you can open below.
Published: $80k median base
Same sorted list - the quartiles are read off it the same way.
147th–148th and 440th–441st of 587
Too many listings to print here.
Postgres’s percentile_cont lands at position p×(n−1) in the sorted list and interpolates when that falls between two values. We publish what it returns rather than rounding to the nearest listing, and we show you which listings it sat between.
Published: $67k–$122k middle range
2,149 further Research Scientist listings were ingested in this window and left out of the maths.
Why they were dropped
They state no annual base range we can put in a dollar median - no figure at all, an on-target-earnings number with no base split out, an hourly rate we will not annualize on the employer’s behalf, or a range quoted in another currency. We do not record which of those applied to each listing, so we don’t break the number down here.
Those 2,149 still appear in search and on employer pages - they are just not allowed to move the number. An OTE figure is not a base salary, and treating one as the other is how salary sites drift high.
587 of 2,736 listings priced the role
$80k is base. It is not the whole offer.
Variable pay is real money, and it is the part listings describe least consistently. Here is exactly what is inside the number and what isn’t.
Counted
Anything a listing states as guaranteed annual base pay, in USD, for a full-time role.
- A stated annual base range
- The base portion split out of an on-target-earnings figure
- Full-time roles, remote or on-site
Not counted
Some of it is real money and some of it is just unreadable. Either way it stays out of the median rather than inflating it.
- Commission, bonus, equity and signing bonuses
- On-target earnings with no base split out
- Hourly and contract rates - we will not annualize them for you
- Ranges stated in another currency
Each of those is a rule in the extractor, not a judgement call - a listing that trips one stays unpriced rather than entering the median as a guess.
Where the listings are.
The same rule applies per market: 3 priced listings or no median. 18 markets clear it in this window. Markets that fall short still get a row with their count, so you can see how close they are rather than wonder why yours is missing. This table covers the 298 of 587 priced listings that name a place - the other 289 are remote, nationwide, carry no location line at all, or are written as something we can’t place on a map (a campus or a building name). They still count toward the median above.
Bars are on the same $0k–$1,000k scale as the hero. Striped rows are below the publishing threshold. 31 further markets are not shown - the long tail is mostly single listings in towns of their own. Employers write locations as free text, so every spelling of a city is resolved to one market before it is counted.
Every number traces back to a job you can open.
These are the actual postings behind the median - the employers running more than one priced req, and the most recent priced listings from the last 90 days. A few may have closed since; they stay listed because the median was computed over them.
About this number.
Base only. $80k is the median of the annual base ranges stated by 587 Research Scientist listings ingested in the last 90 days. Bonus, commission, equity and signing bonuses are excluded, because listings describe them inconsistently - including them would make the number bigger and less true.
Real job listings ingested via LandEarly in the last 90 days - not a survey, not a model. Each listing contributes its pay midpoint, the average of the minimum and maximum it states. Listings without a usable annual range are excluded from the maths entirely.
The middle 50% of Research Scientist salaries - the 25th to 75th percentile - runs from $67k to $122k, based on 587 priced listings. The full published span is $54k at the 10th percentile to $232k at the 90th.
The window is the last 90 days and it rolls forward as we ingest new postings - this page rebuilds every six hours. A listing that ages out of the window drops out of the median; nothing is carried forward or back-filled.
A role needs at least 5 priced listings in the window before we publish a median. Below that we show the listing count instead, and that role's guide says so plainly rather than printing a figure computed from a handful of postings.
Act on these numbers.
A median is a starting point. These turn it into a decision.
Compare pay across roles, levels, and locations interactively - free, no account.
Personalized documentsTailor your resume to land roles in this range, sourced from your real history.
All salary guidesEvery role we track, with the same method and the same threshold.
Remote research scientist jobsThe remote-first cut of this role, where the pay band often differs.
Now be first in the pile.
LandEarly catches Research Scientist roles the hour they post, tailors your resume to each one, and applies before the queue forms.