What is a Biostatistician?

Q: How long does it take to become a biostatistician?

It takes six to seven years to become a biostatistician. This includes the time it takes to earn a master's degree in biostatistics. In some cases, biostatisticians go on to earn doctorate degrees in biostatistics, which can take around eight to ten years to complete.

Q: Is biostatistics a good career?

Yes, biostatistics is a good career. Not only do biostatistics jobs pay well, but they are also in high demand. A career in biostatistics is a great choice for someone who enjoys research, data analysis, statistics, and science. There are numerous career opportunities across a range of industries available to those working in biostatistics careers.

A Biostatistician fuses statistics and mathematics with sciences like biology and medicine to collect, produce, analyze, and represent data and information. This info is then used to design studies, clinical trials, public health research, and experimental treatments.

These people are experts who work in and impact the medical field but rarely interact with any actual patients. They are much like the man behind the curtain in this way, pulling various strings. This position is most often found in large companies that produce medicine or medical devices and tools. But, Biostaticians may also be found in research centers, NGOs, and government and public health organizations.

While some entry-level Biostatistics jobs might require only a Bachelor's in Statistics, Mathematics, or Biostatistics, or yet a different but similar field, most employers will prefer or require applicants with a Master's degree or even a Doctorate instead.

What Does a Biostatistician Do

There are certain skills that many biostatisticians have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed math skills, problem-solving skills and analytical skills.

Learn more about what a Biostatistician does

How To Become a Biostatistician

If you're interested in becoming a biostatistician, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 46.5% of biostatisticians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 40.8% of biostatisticians have master's degrees. Even though most biostatisticians have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Biostatistician

Top Biostatistician Jobs Near You

Biostatistician Career Paths

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a biostatistician can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as senior statistician, progress to a title such as senior statistician and then eventually end up with the title senior statistician.

Average Salary for a Biostatistician

Biostatisticians in America make an average salary of $85,645 per year or $41 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $120,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $60,000 per year.

Average Biostatistician Salary

$85,645 Yearly

$41.18 hourly

$60,00010%

$85,000Median

$120,00090%

See More Salary Information

What Am I Worth?

Roles and Types of Biostatistician

The role of a biostatistician includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general biostatistician responsibilities:

Analyze data, make conclusions regarding the acceptability of products versus specifications
Provides statistical input into protocol and case report form (crf) development in all therapeutic areas (e.g., trial design, sample size estimation, randomization, statistical methods for protocols, edit checks for clinical trial data). Communicates with clients regarding study protocol or statistical analysis issues. Writes detailed statistical analysis plans including specifications for analysis files, consistency checks, tables,
50% statistics and 50% programming work closely with clinicians, programmers,

There are several types of biostatistician, including:

Statistician

Role:

Statisticians deal with data. They source it, collect it, organize it, display it, and present it to company executives, who use it to identify trends and take a peek into the mysteries of the future, predicting possible changes and figuring out strategic moves.

As a statistician, you will create polls, design questionnaires, and conduct surveys to lay your hands on precious data. Then you work your magic and turn it into gold using mathematical theories and statistical methods to seek out patterns.

You will need to know your craft to be considered for a statistician position. You will need at least a bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, or a related field. Your analytical thinking has to be on the spot, and keeping private information to yourself should not be a problem.

Average Salary: $84,726
Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Data Scientist

Role:

Data scientists gather, analyze, and interpret large data sets from company databases. They use their results to create data-driven solutions to business challenges. Also, they use the results to optimize and improve product development, marketing techniques, and business strategies. Likewise, they use predictive modeling to increase and improve customer experiences, revenue generation, ad targeting, and other business outcomes. Other duties include developing predictive models and machine-learning algorithms, using data visualization techniques to present results, and working with the engineering and product development teams.

To become a data scientist, you need at least a bachelor's degree in statistics, computer science, or a relevant field. Skills like problem-solving, communication, analytical, presentation, and math skills aid success in this role. You must be experienced using statistical computer languages like R, Python, SLQ, and so on. The data scientist can earn as low as $82,000 and a high of $165,000. Their average annual salary is $115,874.

Average Salary: $106,104
Degree: Bachelor's Degree

States With The Most Biostatistician Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active biostatistician jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where biostatisticians earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Biostatistician Jobs By State

Rank	State	Number of Jobs	Average Salary
1	California	929	$95,682
2	New York	332	$91,558
3	Virginia	324	$88,775
4	Texas	310	$85,252
5	Washington	307	$85,334
6	Massachusetts	294	$91,483
7	Illinois	276	$81,032
8	Maryland	241	$90,164
9	North Carolina	230	$84,491
10	Pennsylvania	195	$90,820
11	New Jersey	190	$91,550
12	Florida	162	$81,335
13	Georgia	157	$80,733
14	Colorado	117	$78,941
15	Ohio	114	$85,282
16	Oregon	102	$86,779
17	Michigan	92	$86,068
18	Connecticut	83	$91,775
19	Minnesota	77	$79,439
20	Utah	74	$81,889
21	Missouri	74	$78,729
22	Arizona	58	$90,165
23	Indiana	57	$81,735
24	Wisconsin	55	$81,647
25	Tennessee	55	$80,080
26	Iowa	47	$78,549
27	Alabama	42	$80,740
28	Kentucky	39	$81,239
29	Kansas	37	$78,498
30	Arkansas	35	$79,529
31	Delaware	33	$91,078
32	Rhode Island	32	$91,839
33	New Mexico	32	$85,390
34	Louisiana	32	$83,645
35	Idaho	31	$82,578
36	South Carolina	29	$82,279
37	Nevada	28	$92,733
38	Oklahoma	28	$79,654
39	New Hampshire	27	$90,718
40	Hawaii	27	$83,350
41	West Virginia	26	$85,905
42	Maine	23	$88,866
43	Nebraska	22	$77,866
44	Montana	21	$79,484
45	Wyoming	18	$78,492
46	Alaska	17	$94,524
47	North Dakota	17	$78,683
48	Vermont	15	$89,239
49	South Dakota	15	$77,713
50	Mississippi	14	$81,187

Biostatistician Education

Biostatistician Majors

Statistics

27.4 %

Biostatistics

18.9 %

Mathematics

16.2 %

Biostatistician Degrees

Admissions

Most Popular Majors

Biology

Psychology

Public Health

Statistics

Economics

Top Skills For a Biostatistician

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.9% of biostatisticians listed data analysis on their resume, but soft skills such as math skills and problem-solving skills are important as well.

Data Analysis, 8.9%

Patients, 6.8%

Data Management, 5.6%

Statistical Analysis, 5.3%

Study Design, 4.6%

Other Skills, 68.8%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Biostatistician Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Biostatistician templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Biostatistician resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Biostatistician Demographics

Biostatistician Gender Distribution

Male

56%

Female

44%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

Among biostatisticians, 44.2% of them are women, while 55.8% are men.

The most common race/ethnicity among biostatisticians is White, which makes up 59.4% of all biostatisticians.

The most common foreign language among biostatisticians is Chinese at 21.9%.

Online Courses For Biostatistician That You May Like

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1. Statistics for Data Science with Python

This Statistics for Data Science course is designed to introduce you to the basic principles of statistical methods and procedures used for data analysis. After completing this course you will have practical knowledge of crucial topics in statistics including - data gathering, summarizing data using descriptive statistics, displaying and visualizing data, examining relationships between variables, probability distributions, expected values, hypothesis testing, introduction to ANOVA (analysis of...

See More on Coursera

2. Fitting Statistical Models to Data with Python

In this course, we will expand our exploration of statistical inference techniques by focusing on the science and art of fitting statistical models to data. We will build on the concepts presented in the Statistical Inference course (Course 2) to emphasize the importance of connecting research questions to our data analysis methods. We will also focus on various modeling objectives, including making inference about relationships between variables and generating predictions for future...

See More on Coursera

3. Introduction to Statistics & Data Analysis in Public Health

Welcome to Introduction to Statistics & Data Analysis in Public Health! This course will teach you the core building blocks of statistical analysis - types of variables, common distributions, hypothesis testing - but, more than that, it will enable you to take a data set you've never seen before, describe its keys features, get to know its strengths and quirks, run some vital basic analyses and then formulate and test hypotheses based on means and proportions. You'll then have a solid grounding...

See More on Coursera

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Best States For a Biostatistician

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a biostatistician. The best states for people in this position are California, Alaska, Nevada, and Rhode Island. Biostatisticians make the most in California with an average salary of $95,682. Whereas in Alaska and Nevada, they would average $94,524 and $92,733, respectively. While biostatisticians would only make an average of $91,839 in Rhode Island, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. Rhode Island

Total Biostatistician Jobs: 32

Highest 10% Earn:

$127,000

Location Quotient:

1.31

$91,839

Avg. Salary

View 32 Biostatistician Jobs In RI

2. Alaska

Total Biostatistician Jobs: 17

Highest 10% Earn:

$130,000

Location Quotient:

1.02

$94,524

Avg. Salary

View 17 Biostatistician Jobs In AK

3. Nevada

Total Biostatistician Jobs: 28

Highest 10% Earn:

$132,000

Location Quotient:

0.67

$92,733

Avg. Salary

View 28 Biostatistician Jobs In NV

Full List Of Best States For Biostatisticians

How Do Biostatistician Rate Their Jobs?

Top Biostatistician Employers

We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ biostatisticians and discovered their number of biostatistician opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Tech Data was the best, especially with an average salary of $101,367. Novartis follows up with an average salary of $120,329, and then comes Johns Hopkins University with an average of $71,273. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a biostatistician. The employers include Illumina, Parexel International, and Thermo Fisher Scientific

Most Common Employers For Biostatistician

Rank	Company	Average Salary	Hourly Rate	Job Openings
1	Genentech	$123,221	$59.24	54
2	Biogen	$121,433	$58.38	64
3	Novartis	$120,329	$57.85	130
4	Boehringer Ingelheim	$119,970	$57.68	33
5	Vertex Pharmaceuticals	$116,184	$55.86	35
6	Gilead Sciences	$114,943	$55.26	46
7	Edwards Lifesciences	$107,222	$51.55	39
8	Tech Data	$101,367	$48.73	134
9	Parexel International	$98,693	$47.45	40
10	Seagen	$91,570	$44.02	33

Becoming a Biostatistician FAQs

How Do I Start A Career As A Biostatistician?

To start a career as a biostatistician, you'll need the right combination of educational credentials and hands-on experience. Most biostatisticians have at least a master's degree and some previous work experience through internships.

How Long Does It Take To Become A Biostatistician?

It takes six to seven years to become a biostatistician. This includes the time it takes to earn a master's degree in biostatistics. In some cases, biostatisticians go on to earn doctorate degrees in biostatistics, which can take around eight to ten years to complete.

Is Biostatistics A Good Career?

Yes, biostatistics is a good career. Not only do biostatistics jobs pay well, but they are also in high demand. A career in biostatistics is a great choice for someone who enjoys research, data analysis, statistics, and science. There are numerous career opportunities across a range of industries available to those working in biostatistics careers.

Have more questions? See all answers to common computer and mathematical questions.

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Updated February 6, 2023

What is a Biostatistician?

What Does a Biostatistician Do

How To Become a Biostatistician

Biostatistician Career Paths

Top Careers Before Biostatistician

Top Careers After Biostatistician

Recent Job Searches

Average Salary for a Biostatistician

Roles and Types of Biostatistician

Statistician

Data Scientist

States With The Most Biostatistician Jobs

Number Of Biostatistician Jobs By State

Biostatistician Education

Biostatistician Majors

Biostatistician Degrees

Top Colleges for Biostatisticians

1. Johns Hopkins University

2. Columbia University in the City of New York

3. Carnegie Mellon University

4. Emory University

5. Worcester Polytechnic Institute

6. New York University

7. Boston University

8. University of Rochester

9. SUNY at Albany

10. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Top Skills For a Biostatistician

Choose From 10+ Customizable Biostatistician Resume templates

Biostatistician Demographics

Biostatistician Gender Distribution

Online Courses For Biostatistician That You May Like

Best States For a Biostatistician

How Do Biostatistician Rate Their Jobs?

Top Biostatistician Employers

Most Common Employers For Biostatistician

Becoming a Biostatistician FAQs

How Do I Start A Career As A Biostatistician?

How Long Does It Take To Become A Biostatistician?

Is Biostatistics A Good Career?

Search For Biostatistician Jobs

Biostatistician Related Careers

Biostatistician Related Jobs

What Similar Roles Do

Resume For Related Jobs