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Science and Research | Research Scientist

Research Scientist

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Research Scientist is responsible for designing, undertaking and analyzing information from controlled laboratory-based investigations, experiments and trials.

Job Outlook

There were 381 Research Scientist job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 22181 in the United States.

We do not have this data at this time.

Salary

Many new Research Scientist jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.

National

The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $115,689.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $99,506.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Research Scientist postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $80,767.

Education and Experience

Posted Research Scientist jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.

Education LevelPercentage
Associate's Degree0%
Bachelor's Degree39.97%
Master's Degree40.67%
Doctoral Degree65.15%
Other1.32%

Posted Research Scientist jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Years of ExperiencePercentage
0 to 2 years32.26%
3 to 5 years44.49%
6 to 8 years12.55%
9+ years10.7%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Research Scientist positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.

Baseline Skills

A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.

  • Research (88.4%)
  • Communication (40.18%)
  • Writing (26.2%)
  • Innovation (22.63%)
  • Management (21.51%)
  • Presentations (19.36%)
  • Leadership (18.6%)
  • Problem Solving (15.54%)
  • Operations (12.85%)
  • Planning (12.08%)

Defining Skills

A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.

  • Python (Programming Language) (30.12%)

Necessary Skills

A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.

  • Electrical Engineering (7.85%)
  • Molecular Biology (10.01%)
  • Applied Research (7.22%)
  • C++ (Programming Language) (15.92%)
  • Artificial Intelligence (19.45%)
  • Algorithms (17.91%)
  • Biochemical Assays (10.11%)
  • Chemistry (17.51%)
  • Biochemistry (10.86%)
  • Biology (19.24%)
  • Data Collection (9.73%)
  • Computer Science (24.59%)
  • R (Programming Language) (15.83%)
  • Experimentation (5.87%)
  • Data Analysis (26.61%)
  • Machine Learning (29.54%)
  • Scalability (8.27%)
  • Computer Engineering (8.18%)
  • Deep Learning (12.54%)
  • Software Engineering (7.8%)
  • Physics (13.24%)
  • Project Management (12.45%)
  • Research Experiences (13.38%)
  • New Product Development (9.29%)
  • Scientific Studies (8.13%)
  • Statistics (10.22%)
  • PyTorch (Machine Learning Library) (8.99%)
  • Research And Development (5.78%)
  • Data Science (11.17%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

  • Reinforcement Learning (4.33%)

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed.

  • Reinforcement Learning (100%)

Alternative Job Titles

Sometimes employers post jobs with Research Scientist skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:

  • Applied Scientist
  • Research Administrator
  • Scientist
  • Principal Scientist
  • Research Data Scientist
  • Research and Development Scientist
  • Research Scientist Manager
  • Applied Research Scientist
  • Research Scientist/Engineer

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.

Common Employers

Here are the employers that have posted the most Research Scientist jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

  • Meta (1307)
  • Amazon (800)
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (273)
  • University of California (251)
  • Thermo Fisher Scientific (221)
  • Pearson Education (199)
  • Columbia University (187)
  • University of Washington (178)
  • Actalent (176)
  • GAF Materials Corporation (172)

North Carolina

  • Duke University (23)
  • University of North Carolina (21)
  • Cambrex (20)
  • North Carolina Central University (14)
  • Grifols (12)
  • RTI International (10)
  • Hitachi (9)
  • Eurofins (8)
  • BASF (7)
  • Actalent (6)

NC State Programs Relevant to this Career

If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!

All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.