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 67 Bioinformatician job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 3032 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Biostatistician industry, which includes the Bioinformatician career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2016:
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 | 42.65% |
| Master's Degree | 53.96% |
| Doctoral Degree | 53.99% |
| Other | 0.26% |
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 | 34.84% |
| 3 to 5 years | 47.96% |
| 6 to 8 years | 12.97% |
| 9+ years | 4.23% |
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 (70.35%)
- Communication (42.08%)
- Presentations (22.86%)
- Writing (21.24%)
- Problem Solving (19.46%)
- Management (19.23%)
- Innovation (18.63%)
- Troubleshooting (Problem Solving) (17.45%)
- Detail Oriented (12.9%)
- Quality Control (11.74%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Next-Generation Sequencing (30.74%)
- Statistics (28.06%)
- Machine Learning (27.69%)
- Python (Programming Language) (62.15%)
- Gene Expression (10.12%)
- Genetics (21.5%)
- Genomics (36.32%)
- Whole Genome Sequencing (8.73%)
- R (Programming Language) (57.35%)
- Linux (23.19%)
- Computer Science (40.56%)
- Computational Biology (40.01%)
- DNA Sequencing (33.92%)
- Bioinformatics (67.43%)
- Biology (56.09%)
- Data Analysis (56.57%)
- Workflow Management (31.45%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- Programming Languages (13.91%)
- Docker (Software) (6.16%)
- High Performance Computing (9.72%)
- Ribonucleic Acid Sequencing (27.96%)
- Data Science (17.57%)
- Scripting (15.3%)
- Informatics (8.46%)
- SQL (Programming Language) (10.9%)
- Statistical Methods (8.87%)
- Scientific Literature (7.89%)
- Microbiology (6.4%)
- MySQL (4.37%)
- Mass Spectrometry (3.18%)
- Project Management (7.48%)
- Oncology (11.37%)
- Scalability (4.74%)
- Standard Operating Procedure (3.42%)
- Github (7.96%)
- Perl (Programming Language) (16.55%)
- Drug Discovery (5.79%)
- Data Visualization (11.07%)
- Data Management (14.15%)
- Data Processing (11.71%)
- Command-Line Interface (3.05%)
- Immunology (12.97%)
- Clinical Trials (6.3%)
- Cloud Computing (14.15%)
- Version Control (11.88%)
- Unix (14.15%)
- C++ (Programming Language) (11.65%)
- Automation (7.08%)
- Bash (Scripting Language) (10.56%)
- Biochemistry (9.34%)
- Biotechnology (7.48%)
- Molecular Biology (19.4%)
- Biostatistics (16.42%)
- Amazon Web Services (11.81%)
- Software Development (8.84%)
- Chemistry (7.28%)
- Biochemical Assays (11.61%)
- Artificial Intelligence (12.69%)
- Algorithms (25.25%)
- C (Programming Language) (8.09%)
- Java (Programming Language) (9%)
- Proteomics (17.67%)
- Git (Version Control System) (10.12%)
- Biomarkers (10.12%)
- Statistical Analysis (13.03%)
- Cancer Biology (5.38%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- DNA Methylation (1.25%)
- SAMtools (2.88%)
- Sequence Analysis (4.64%)
- Exome Sequencing (2.47%)
- Cancer Genomics (2.51%)
- Bioconductor (Bioinformatics Software) (4.37%)
- Bioinformatics Databases (1.15%)
- Phylogenetics (3.35%)
- Genome Database (3.15%)
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
- Bioinformatics Research Assistant
- Computational Scientist
- Scientist
- Applications Scientist
- Research Scientist
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.
- Computational Biologist
- Research Scientist
- Data Scientist
- Biologist (General)
- Statistician
- Research Associate (General)
- Molecular Biologist
- Infectious Disease Scientist
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 (110)
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (75)
- Danaher (67)
- University of Chicago (64)
- Illumina (47)
- Mount Sinai Health System (45)
- Washington University in St Louis (44)
- St George Tanaq Corporation (43)
- Cedars-Sinai (38)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (36)
North Carolina
- Labcorp (9)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (8)
- Danaher (8)
- Duke University (7)
- Atrium Health (6)
- GlaxoSmithKline (3)
- Neogenomics Laboratories (2)
- Sciome (2)
- Kelly Services (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!
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.