Data Scientist Salary Guide

Data scientists in the United States earned a median annual wage of $120,230 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Half of data scientists earned more than that and half earned less, and the middle half earned between $85,660 and $158,880.

This salary guide will help you see the full pay range and compare data scientist wages by state, metro area and industry, so you can understand what your earning potential may be—and whether the cost of a data science degree or other training path makes sense for your goals.

How Much Do Data Scientists Make?

The median annual wage for data scientists in the United States was $120,230 in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS also reported a median hourly wage of $57.80 and a mean (average) annual wage of $126,800 for the occupation. But the median is only a starting point: the sections below show how pay is spread across the occupation and how it differs by state, metro area and industry.

Data Scientist Salary Range

BLS wage percentiles show how pay is spread across the occupation. In May 2025, 10% of data scientists earned less than $67,240 a year, and 10% earned more than $199,130, according to BLS OEWS data.

^{BLS does not report data scientist wages by years of experience, so there is no official entry-level or starting salary figure. The lower percentiles show what the lowest-paid data scientists earned, not what every new data scientist will earn, and the 90th percentile is not a typical or guaranteed outcome. To estimate a specific offer, compare these ranges with the state, metro, and industry figures below and with the responsibilities in the job posting.}

“Data scientist” is a broad title, and job responsibilities vary by industry, organization, and team structure. In one company, a data scientist might spend most of the day building machine learning models or working with AI systems. In another, the job may be closer to analytics: cleaning data, spotting patterns, building dashboards and helping teams understand what the numbers mean. As IBM explains in its guide to structuring a modern data team, modern data teams often include overlapping roles such as data analysts, data scientists, data engineers, analytics engineers, business intelligence analysts, data product managers and data leaders, so it helps to understand how data analyst and data scientist roles differ before comparing pay.

Skills, Certifications and Data Scientist Pay

Not every data science role calls for the same level of technical depth. According to O*NET OnLine’s profile of data scientists, skills for data scientists range from machine learning, data modeling, natural language processing, large datasets, visualization, and reporting. Additionally, data scientists may need hands-on expertise in data-oriented programming languages and the tools used to build, deploy and report on models. As the OEWS technical notes describe, BLS publishes its wage estimates by occupation, area, industry and ownership, not by skill or certification, so the figures in this guide cannot show how much a particular skill or credential adds to pay.

For cloud-based machine learning roles, the AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate credential focuses on implementing and operationalizing machine learning workloads in production. The AWS Certified AI Practitioner credential is more foundational, covering concepts and use cases in AI, machine learning, and generative AI. For Microsoft-focused roles, the Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate credential focuses on designing, developing, and deploying Azure AI solutions using Python and Microsoft Foundry.

Before investing in a certification, compare job postings in your target market and look for repeated requirements around AWS, Azure, Python, SQL, machine learning, data pipelines, or model deployment.

Does a Master’s Degree Increase Data Scientist Salary?

O*NET OnLine, the U.S. Department of Labor’s occupational database, places data scientists in Job Zone Four (considerable preparation needed) and notes that most occupations in that zone require a four-year bachelor’s degree, though some do not. If you are considering graduate study, you can compare a master’s in data science with a PhD in data science, and our data scientist career guide covers the broader path into the field.

The BLS wage figures in this guide cover all wage-and-salary data scientists, whatever degree they hold, as described in the OEWS technical notes. They show what the occupation pays, not how much more a graduate degree adds. To judge whether a specific program is likely to pay off, you can:

• Look up the program’s field of study in the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard, which publishes field-of-study data by credential level for each institution, including median earnings and median federal loan debt. As the Scorecard glossary explains, a field of study is a category defined by a four-digit CIP code and a credential level, so it may not match one advertised program exactly; median earnings cover only completers who received federal financial aid and were working and not enrolled in school when earnings were measured, in the fourth full year after completion; and median debt counts federal student loans only, not private loans or Parent PLUS loans.
• Compare the program’s total cost with the data scientist wage range above and with the median wage in the state or metro area where you plan to work.
• Read job postings for the roles you want and note whether employers list a master’s degree as required, preferred, or not mentioned.

Top Paying Locations for Data Scientists

Salaries for data scientists vary by state and metro area. In May 2025, Washington, California and New York were among the states with the highest median wages for data scientists, but some metro areas in states with lower statewide medians, such as Idaho Falls, ID, also reported median wages well above the national figure. The BLS wage figures below compare pay for the same occupation across areas and are not adjusted for living costs.

Top Paying States for Data Scientists

This guide’s comparison of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) estimates for May 2025 lists every state or jurisdiction where the median annual wage for data scientists was above the national median for the occupation, $120,230. Each state links to its May 2025 OEWS estimates. BLS did not publish a May 2025 median wage for data scientists in Delaware or Wyoming.

Top Paying Metro and Nonmetro Areas for Data Scientists

Metro-level salary data can reveal high-paying local markets that may not stand out in statewide figures. The comparison below is this guide’s analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates for data scientists; each area links to its May 2025 OEWS estimates. It lists every metro and nonmetro area where median pay was at least 10% higher than the national benchmark ($120,230), which works out to $132,253 or more. The figures compare wages for the same occupation across geographies, but they do not adjust for cost of living, housing, taxes, remote-work availability, or the number of local openings.

Standout Markets for Data Scientist Salaries

Some metro areas report median wages for data scientists well above the national benchmark, even when the statewide median is lower. Using the same BLS May 2025 estimates, this guide’s comparison highlights every metro area where median pay was at least 10% above the U.S. benchmark while the statewide median for data scientists was below the national benchmark.

A few areas are especially useful reminders that local labor markets can differ from statewide patterns.

• Idaho Falls, ID: The metro median annual wage for data scientists was $167,840, compared with Idaho’s statewide median of $89,380.
• North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL: The metro median annual wage was $146,980, compared with Florida’s statewide median of $115,820.
• Boulder, CO: The metro median annual wage was $134,040, compared with Colorado’s statewide median of $117,400.
• Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC: The metro median annual wage was $132,460, compared with North Carolina’s statewide median of $119,090.

Those gaps do not mean these markets are automatically better places to work, but they may point to local employer clusters or specialized labor markets. Keep in mind these figures represent wage data only and do not account for the cost of living, housing costs, taxes, remote work options, or the number of available jobs. But they do show why it can be useful to look beyond statewide salary figures when comparing data scientist pay.

Data Scientist Salary by Industry

Data scientists work across many parts of the economy, and median pay for the occupation differs from one industry to another, as the table below shows.

Industry-level salaries are most useful when median wages are compared with employment estimates. Some industries report high median wages but employ relatively few data scientists. Others may offer more roles, even if the median wage is closer to the national benchmark. The table below focuses on industries where above-national-median pay and meaningful employment appear to overlap.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data, the national median annual wage for data scientists was $120,230 across industries. For the table below, this guide filtered BLS’s 4-digit NAICS industry estimates to the industry categories that reported median wages above that benchmark and employed at least 1,000 data scientists, and listed them by employment. Each category links to its May 2025 OEWS industry estimates.

*Employment refers to the estimated number of wage-and-salary workers employed in an occupation. BLS estimates the number of data scientists working in each industry category. These figures do not include self-employed workers.

FAQs About Data Scientist Salary

The salary data in this guide, including the figures referenced in the FAQ section below, comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data for Data Scientists (SOC 15-2051, 2018 Standard Occupational Classification). BLS OEWS data provide national, state, metro, industry, and wage-percentile estimates for wage-and-salary workers in this occupation.

This page includes information from O*NET OnLine by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.