Bioinformatician

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

A Bioinformatician uses computers and software tools to study biology and biology-related data. Conducts studies and maintains biology data; may develop specialized bioinformatics software. Analysis may be used for product development at a pharmaceutical company, disease research at a hospital or health policy research at a public health organization.

Job Outlook

There were 50 Bioinformatician job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 2836 in the United States.

We do not have this data at this time.

Salary

Many new Bioinformatician 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 $103,868.

State

The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $103,868.

Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Bioinformatician postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $78,900.

Education and Experience

Posted Bioinformatician 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 Level	Percentage
Associate's Degree	0%
Bachelor's Degree	41.15%
Master's Degree	54.51%
Doctoral Degree	56.31%
Other	0.35%

Posted Bioinformatician 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 Experience	Percentage
0 to 2 years	33.67%
3 to 5 years	49.36%
6 to 8 years	12.9%
9+ years	4.07%

Skills

Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Bioinformatician 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 (69.64%)
Communication (41.61%)
Presentations (22.11%)
Innovation (19.89%)
Writing (19.68%)
Problem Solving (18.79%)
Management (17.7%)
Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (16.89%)
Detail Oriented (13.96%)
Quality Control (13.33%)

Defining Skills

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

Bioinformatics (69.63%)
Python (Programming Language) (62.74%)
R (Programming Language) (56.98%)
Data Analysis (59.12%)
Biology (54.91%)
Computer Science (39.65%)
Computational Biology (43.1%)
Genomics (36.39%)
DNA Sequencing (34.36%)
Ribonucleic Acid Sequencing (27.47%)
Next-Generation Sequencing (31.28%)
Workflow Management (33.67%)
Statistics (27.26%)
Machine Learning (27.91%)
Linux (23.34%)
Algorithms (24.72%)
Molecular Biology (20.26%)
Whole Genome Sequencing (9.03%)

Necessary Skills

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

Genetics (22.11%)
Biostatistics (16.49%)
Data Science (17%)
Perl (Programming Language) (15.95%)
Unix (13.59%)
Proteomics (17.47%)
Scripting (15.62%)
Programming Languages (14.5%)
Data Management (14.28%)
C++ (Programming Language) (11.05%)
Immunology (13.41%)
Cloud Computing (16.06%)
Oncology (12.43%)
Statistical Analysis (14.24%)
Data Visualization (13.34%)
Data Processing (11.53%)
SQL (Programming Language) (10.51%)
Amazon Web Services (14.32%)
Java (Programming Language) (7.21%)
Biochemical Assays (11.56%)
Biomarkers (11.13%)
Version Control (13.01%)
Bash (Scripting Language) (10.29%)
Informatics (7.54%)
C (Programming Language) (7.39%)
Artificial Intelligence (15.51%)
High Performance Computing (11.89%)
Software Development (8.37%)
Gene Expression (9.39%)
Statistical Methods (9.42%)
Biochemistry (9.21%)
Git (Version Control System) (11.74%)
Clinical Trials (6.27%)
Project Management (7.14%)
Cell Biology (6.6%)
Data Mining (5%)
MATLAB (7.03%)
Epigenetics (7.65%)
Scientific Literature (8.01%)

Distinguishing Skills

A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.

Bioconductor (Bioinformatics Software) (5.04%)
Snakemake (6.38%)
Sequence Analysis (5.26%)
Exome Sequencing (2.5%)
Cancer Genomics (3.44%)
Genome Database (3.01%)

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.

Bioinformatics (100%)

Alternative Job Titles

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

Bioinformatics Scientist
Bioinformatics Analyst
Bioinformatics Research Scientist
Bioinformatics Specialist
Scientist
Bioinformatics Research Assistant
Computational Scientist
Research Scientist
Bioinformatics Researcher

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 Bioinformatician jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.

United States

University of Pennsylvania (99)
Mount Sinai Health System (59)
University of Chicago (58)
Association Of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (54)
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (50)
Cedars-Sinai (43)
St George Tanaq Corporation (43)
Danaher (42)
Illumina (41)
University of Minnesota (38)

North Carolina

Atrium Health (6)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (5)
Danaher (5)
General Dynamics (3)
Labcorp (2)
Neogenomics Laboratories (2)
Duke University (2)
North Carolina State University (2)
UNC Health (2)
Quintiles (1)

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!

Statistics Master's Degrees

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.

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