Biostatistician vs bioinformatician

The differences between biostatisticians and bioinformaticians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become a biostatistician, becoming a bioinformatician takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, a biostatistician has an average salary of $85,645, which is higher than the $71,359 average annual salary of a bioinformatician.

The top three skills for a biostatistician include data analysis, patients and data management. The most important skills for a bioinformatician are python, data analysis, and next-generation sequencing.

Biostatistician vs bioinformatician overview

	Biostatistician	Bioinformatician
Yearly salary	$85,645	$71,359
Hourly rate	$41.18	$34.31
Growth rate	31%	17%
Number of jobs	17,972	16,034
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 43%
Average age	37	41
Years of experience	2	4

What does a biostatistician do?

A biostatistician specializes in gathering and analyzing data for medical and biological research. Typically, their responsibilities revolve around devising the ideal questionnaire or survey for significant results, maintaining accurate records of data, developing conclusions and research papers, contributing findings to publications, and even collaborating with other scientists. There are also instances where biostatisticians may train junior statisticians, conduct corrective measures on inconsistencies and data error, and develop new strategies for scientific outcomes. Most importantly, a biostatistician must adhere to the laws and regulations on data gathering processes.

What does a bioinformatician do?

Bioinformaticians are experts who are responsible for developing and conducting research by using methods and software tools to collect and analyze complex biological data. By combining their research in biology, medicine, and health-related studies with information technology, these bioinformaticians are required to interpret data that covers areas such as genetics or pharmaceutics. They must develop databases to compile a large amount of information from activities such as gene expression profiling and protein expression. Bioinformaticians must also maintain laboratory documents and keep updated with scientific or medical journals.

Biostatistician vs bioinformatician salary

Biostatisticians and bioinformaticians have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Biostatistician	Bioinformatician
Average salary	$85,645	$71,359
Salary range	Between $60,000 And $120,000	Between $40,000 And $127,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	Branford, CT
Highest paying state	California	Rhode Island
Best paying company	Meta	AstraZeneca
Best paying industry	Pharmaceutical	Health Care

Differences between biostatistician and bioinformatician education

There are a few differences between a biostatistician and a bioinformatician in terms of educational background:

	Biostatistician	Bioinformatician
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 43%
Most common major	Statistics	Biostatistics
Most common college	Johns Hopkins University	University of Southern California

Biostatistician vs bioinformatician demographics

Here are the differences between biostatisticians' and bioinformaticians' demographics:

	Biostatistician	Bioinformatician
Average age	37	41
Gender ratio	Male, 55.8% Female, 44.2%	Male, 83.1% Female, 16.9%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 5.1% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 7.6% Asian, 22.7% White, 59.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 5.8% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Asian, 39.0% White, 42.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage	9%	8%

Differences between biostatistician and bioinformatician duties and responsibilities

Biostatistician example responsibilities.

Extract and manage data from different sources, proficient in query language SQL.
Act as project director for managing the preparation of safety and efficacy reports for NDA submission.
Manage Medicaid fraud and abuse portfolios by analyzing medical and pharmacy claims data.
Provide suggestions to clients in classification algorithms, ANOVA, experimental design, and various hypothesis tests.
Design clinical plans, new product or improvement protocols, co-ordinate CRO and clinical site contracts and IRB submissions.
Create views using SQL programming.

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Bioinformatician example responsibilities.

Develop UNIX shell script, PERL and AWK program and apply TECPLOT software macro files to automate data processing and report.
Perform data, results visualization, full SDLC
Identify single nucleotide variants from NGS data.
Develop and teach introductory shortcourses in Perl and HTML.
Identify differentially express genes among different populations using NGS RNAseq data from TCGA.
Learned and adapt accepted RNA-seq pipeline to analyze data generate by lab members.

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Biostatistician vs bioinformatician skills

Common biostatistician skills

Data Analysis, 9%
Patients, 7%
Data Management, 6%
Statistical Analysis, 5%
Study Design, 5%
Data Collection, 4%

Common bioinformatician skills

Python, 17%
Data Analysis, 12%
Next-Generation Sequencing, 11%
Java, 8%
Visualization, 7%
NGS, 5%

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Updated January 8, 2025

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