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Data Scientist Salaries (Updated for 2025)

Data Scientist Salaries (Updated for 2025)

Let's dive into data science salaries and see how they vary by seniority, location, and across different companies.

Overview

We analyzed over 50,000 data science salaries.

There is base salary, which is a standard everywhere. Still, data science salary numbers can be complex with the advent of stock options, restricted stock units (RSUs), annual bonuses, sign-on bonuses, 401K matching, and an extremely tight labor market.

Data Scientist Salaries Over Time

We analyzed data from back to 2015 and realized that salaries for data scientists have increased as the field has grown.

Because the average across all time periods isn’t that helpful, we tried adding a recency-weighted scale that would adjust the salaries for the more recent additions. As you can see, in the last two years, the average data scientist’s salary is actually around $140K.

Data Scientist Salaries Over Time

We initially used a linear recency scale - but as you can see, it’s still averaged to pre-2018. So, in the future, we might use an exponential one to really validate our findings and show the most up-to-date accurate information.

Data Scientist Salary Compared to other Positions

Data science is a term used to describe many different positions across a spectrum of roles. If we compare the salary of positions named “Data Scientist” across data engineers and machine learning engineers while also looking at other tech jobs like product managers and software engineers, data scientists fall neatly in the upper levels, but the variance is pretty high.

$85K
$243K
Product Manager
Median: $157K
Mean (Average): $161K
Data points: 8,170
$73K
$220K
Machine Learning Engineer
Median: $144K
Mean (Average): $145K
Data points: 4,876
$70K
$185K
Data Scientist
Median: $120K
Mean (Average): $123K
Data points: 30,377
$61K
$198K
Software Engineer
Median: $105K
Mean (Average): $116K
Data points: 284,398
$64K
$168K
Data Engineer
Median: $100K
Mean (Average): $107K
Data points: 28,379
$56K
$150K
Product Analyst
Median: $90K
Mean (Average): $95K
Data points: 870
$56K
$141K
Business Intelligence
Median: $90K
Mean (Average): $94K
Data points: 10,676
$49K
$174K
Research Scientist
Median: $80K
Mean (Average): $94K
Data points: 14,463
$44K
$160K
Growth Marketing Analyst
Median: $68K
Mean (Average): $83K
Data points: 1,941
$46K
$145K
Data Analyst
Median: $75K
Mean (Average): $83K
Data points: 32,111
$55K
$122K
Business Analyst
Median: $76K
Mean (Average): $81K
Data points: 49,483

Most data science positions fall under different position titles depending on the actual role.

From the graph we can see that on average the Product Manager role pays the most with a $161,035 base salary while the Business Analyst role on average pays the least with a $80,933 base salary.

Data engineer’s and analysts’ salaries have also increased by 35% over the past 5 years compared to a 6% increase by software engineers.

But most data science roles are just playing catch up. On average, data engineers and data scientists made around $140K in base pay in 2021 compared to $155K for software engineers.

Data Salaries by Year

Machine learning engineers were still the highest paying out of all data positions, averaging $175K in base salary in 2021.

Data Scientist Salary by Seniority Levels

It’s undeniable that years of experience is by far the biggest factor to influence salaries.

While most titles don’t have seniority titles, we scraped data and combined seniority titles with years of experience to create buckets representative of how we would envision a regular career path forming:

  • Individual contributor route → Entry level, Mid-level, Senior, Principal, Staff, Architect, etc…

  • Manager route → Entry level, Mid-level, Senior, Manager, Director, VP, etc…

Here we’ve bucketed almost all individuals with 5+ years of experience or varying levels of senior individual contributor titles (staff, principal, etc…) into one bucket called “Senior Data Scientists”. This drastically reduces the complexity around understanding how different organizations set their own levels (is L1 or L3 the bottom?) and titles (is the principal more senior than staff?).

Seniority Title Seniority Categorization
Entry Level Data Scientist 0-1 years of relevant experience
Mid-Level Data Scientist 2-5 years of relevant experience
Senior Data Scientist 6+ years of relevant experience
Data Science Manager Manager in job title
Director or VP of Data Science Director or higher in job title
$115K
$304K
Executive
Median: $190K
Mean (Average): $191K
Data points: 13
$77K
$220K
Manager
Median: $138K
Mean (Average): $142K
Data points: 822
$85K
$215K
Senior
Median: $141K
Mean (Average): $146K
Data points: 4,581
$77K
$180K
Mid-Level
Median: $139K
Mean (Average): $134K
Data points: 4,279
$60K
$155K
Entry Level
Median: $92K
Mean (Average): $100K
Data points: 851

We’re seeing that, on average, once you have a few years of experience under your belt, the base salary and total compensation numbers skyrocket.

So note that after one or two years at a company as an entry level data scientist, and you’re not getting a significant raise, it’s definitely in your best interest to try to move jobs.

Additionally, the data suggests that many senior data scientists, on average, make more in total compensation than data science managers.

This is especially due to the number of senior data scientists on staff at larger FAANG companies, where an individual contributor with 10+ years of experience can make tons of money given their leverage in increasing company revenue.

Top Cities for Data Scientist Salaries

Most data science salaries vary a lot by location. However, Covid-19 and the shift to remote work changed how we value location-based salaries.

For example, here are the cities with the highest base salaries. And it’s no surprise that average base data science salaries in San Francisco and Seattle come in on top with over $145K and $130K, respectively.

$121K
$200K
Kalamazoo, MI
Median: $169K
Mean (Average): $164K
Data points: 18
$110K
$181K
Huntsville, AL
Median: $150K
Mean (Average): $145K
Data points: 6
$92K
$200K
San Francisco, CA
Median: $142K
Mean (Average): $144K
Data points: 8,899
$69K
$210K
Omaha, NE
Median: $144K
Mean (Average): $142K
Data points: 140
$96K
$228K
Sydney, Australia
Median: $110K
Mean (Average): $140K
Data points: 5
$95K
$185K
Zurich, Switzerland
Median: $137K
Mean (Average): $136K
Data points: 7
$97K
$175K
Tel Aviv, Israel
Median: $133K
Mean (Average): $136K
Data points: 13
$91K
$179K
Seattle, WA
Median: $135K
Mean (Average): $135K
Data points: 4,818
$82K
$195K
Memphis, TN
Median: $130K
Mean (Average): $129K
Data points: 139
$78K
$168K
Charleston, SC
Median: $144K
Mean (Average): $128K
Data points: 5
$70K
$180K
Los Angeles, CA
Median: $119K
Mean (Average): $126K
Data points: 887
$73K
$183K
New York, NY
Median: $120K
Mean (Average): $124K
Data points: 3,350
$70K
$157K
Colorado Springs, CO
Median: $133K
Mean (Average): $121K
Data points: 6
$86K
$154K
Dublin, Ireland
Median: $114K
Mean (Average): $117K
Data points: 8
$67K
$170K
Baltimore, MD
Median: $111K
Mean (Average): $116K
Data points: 63

The Data Scientist salary in Geneva, Switzerland is the highest paying salary with a $183,000 average base salary. The Data Scientist salary in Warsaw, Poland is the lowest paying salary with $45,000 average base salary.

But with the advent of remote work, employers started choosing whether to normalize salaries across the entire U.S. or based on where you were living. So if we look at the best cities to live in, normalized data science salaries in Austin, Boise, Arkansas, and Cincinnati are among the best.

Top Cities by Cost of Living

How Education Level Affects Data Science Salaries

Education has a clear effect on how much you can earn as a data scientist. A master’s degree in a data science-related field, for example, typically results in a $10,000-$15,000 increase in base salary.

Master’s Degree Salaries

A master’s degree is increasingly preferred for tech jobs at FAANG companies. The most common fields of study in data science include data analytics, data science, statistics, and machine learning. Here are some of the top master’s in data science salaries:

PhD Salaries

PhD is a preferred qualification for many data science specialized research roles. PhD programs in mathematics, statistics, machine learning, and data science are all options to land research jobs in tech, finance, and more. Here are common salaries by degree obtained:

Top Companies for Data Scientist Salaries

Lastly analyzing the top companies that hire for data scientists, we can see the FAANG companies all around the top.

$112K
$649K
Netflix
Median: $303K
Mean (Average): $319K
Data points: 86
$113K
$284K
Roblox
Median: $223K
Mean (Average): $216K
Data points: 22
$153K
$312K
Roku Inc.
Median: $195K
Mean (Average): $212K
Data points: 19
$106K
$260K
Stitch Fix
Median: $223K
Mean (Average): $200K
Data points: 72
$154K
$264K
Citadel Llc
Median: $190K
Mean (Average): $198K
Data points: 9
$182K
$198K
Albertsons
Median: $190K
Mean (Average): $190K
Data points: 8
$153K
$218K
Reddit, Inc.
Median: $210K
Mean (Average): $190K
Data points: 13
$138K
$220K
Opendoor.Com
Median: $200K
Mean (Average): $188K
Data points: 6
$90K
$340K
Goldman Sachs
Median: $175K
Mean (Average): $187K
Data points: 12
$144K
$230K
Wish - Shopping Made Fun!
Median: $190K
Mean (Average): $187K
Data points: 8
$124K
$285K
Palo Alto Networks
Median: $160K
Mean (Average): $182K
Data points: 15
$100K
$233K
Bytedance Inc.
Median: $177K
Mean (Average): $178K
Data points: 63
$128K
$242K
Tiktok
Median: $180K
Mean (Average): $178K
Data points: 16
$144K
$237K
Slack
Median: $158K
Mean (Average): $177K
Data points: 5
$130K
$224K
Airbnb
Median: $175K
Mean (Average): $174K
Data points: 182

The Data Scientist at Netflix salary is the highest paying salary with a $318,757 average base salary. The Data Scientist at Gojek tech salary is the lowest paying salary with $41,000 average base salary.