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Job outlook for chief scientists in the United States
Are chief scientist jobs in demand?
Chief scientist job and salary trends over time
Chief scientist jobs over time
Chief scientist job growth rate over time
| Year | # of jobs | % of population |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 268 | 0.00% |
| 2020 | 311 | 0.00% |
| 2019 | 314 | 0.00% |
| 2018 | 297 | 0.00% |
| 2017 | 276 | 0.00% |
Average chief scientist salary over time
Chief scientist salary by year
| Year | Avg. salary | Hourly rate | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | $108,046 | $51.94 | +3.1% |
| 2025 | $104,834 | $50.40 | +4.7% |
| 2024 | $100,135 | $48.14 | +3.3% |
| 2023 | $96,923 | $46.60 | +1.9% |
| 2022 | $95,082 | $45.71 | --2.1% |
Chief scientist jobs by state
Most common states for chief scientists
| Rank | State | Population | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 693,972 | 260 | 37% |
| 2 | Massachusetts | 6,859,819 | 1,535 | 22% |
| 3 | Delaware | 961,939 | 165 | 17% |
| 4 | Maryland | 6,052,177 | 864 | 14% |
| 5 | Virginia | 8,470,020 | 1,135 | 13% |
| 6 | South Dakota | 869,666 | 105 | 12% |
| 7 | Washington | 7,405,743 | 789 | 11% |
| 8 | New Hampshire | 1,342,795 | 145 | 11% |
| 9 | Vermont | 623,657 | 71 | 11% |
| 10 | Connecticut | 3,588,184 | 346 | 10% |
| 11 | North Dakota | 755,393 | 77 | 10% |
| 12 | Alaska | 739,795 | 74 | 10% |
| 13 | Wyoming | 579,315 | 58 | 10% |
| 14 | California | 39,536,653 | 3,434 | 9% |
| 15 | New Jersey | 9,005,644 | 855 | 9% |
| 16 | Montana | 1,050,493 | 97 | 9% |
| 17 | North Carolina | 10,273,419 | 827 | 8% |
| 18 | Oregon | 4,142,776 | 330 | 8% |
| 19 | New Mexico | 2,088,070 | 175 | 8% |
| 20 | Rhode Island | 1,059,639 | 89 | 8% |
Most common cities for chief scientists
| Rank | City | # of jobs | Employment/ 1000ppl | Avg. salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Woburn | 3 | 8% | $97,092 |
| 2 | San Diego | 1 | 0% | $118,173 |
Chief Scientist job outlook: Expert opinions
Our panel of chief scientist experts
Pepperdine University
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Northwestern University
Washington State University
Quinnipiac University
University of Houston
Meredith College
University of Kentucky
Doverspike Consulting/HR LItehouse
Robert Morris University
Wright State University
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Frank David MD, PhD: In basic research jobs, the key lab-related skills will continue to be the ones that are commonly used for discovering and developing new therapies: mammalian cell culture, in vitro assays, transfection, immunoprecipitation, Western blots, etc. It’s typically not necessary to 'check all the boxes' in terms of bench skills for a job, but having a few of these key techniques under your belt will give a company confidence that you can learn others. In general across the industry, effective written communication and project management are key skills that cut across almost all jobs and divisions within biotech and pharma. Anything you can do to build and highlight those capabilities will serve you in good stead.
Camellia Okpodu
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Camellia Okpodu: Adatation and fundamental knowledge of botanical terms will always be pivotal to the discipline; however new technologies and applications will move the bountiful the discipline. Bioinformatics, genomics; Machine learning, Remote Sensing and VR (both for instruction and field application) will be necessay skills. Also, Botanists will collaborate with experts from diverse fields (ecology, computer science, engineering) thus making effective communication and teamwork critical.skills of the future
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Ross Weatherman Ph.D.: The jobs that our graduates in biochemistry and molecular biology are taking are really diverse in terms of the types of companies and in the types of job requirements. They are not all big jobs in pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Many start working for smaller diagnostic labs or support labs for manufacturing or food processing. Also, I tell our students to expect to change jobs or employers in a few years. For our students, the job market seems to be pretty dynamic for them in the first 5-10 years either because they choose to change jobs or their companies go through some sort of change.
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Rachel Tan Ph.D.: I do not have an answer for this. My response would be to be proactive during undergraduate studies, to discern where you find joy and curiosity. Pursue that topic. I do not think that the salary should be the priority when considering careers.
What Chief Scientist skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Qing Li: AI will become more important and prevalent in the field in the next 3-5 years but laboratory experiments will continue to make new discoveries.
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Qing Li: Follow your heart and do what you enjoy and enjoy what you do. Research direction is as important as scientific questions if it is not more important.
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Nathaniel Stern: To answer this question we need to be clear what field the graduate intends to continue in. If they want to continue in Physics as a “field”, then they will most likely need to go to graduate school in Physics, Astronomy, or a related field. There are many opportunities for graduates with majors in Physics, but many of these are in different fields. Physics majors excel in these other opportunities, but in order to do “physics”, meaning studying the science of matter and energy, one generally goes to graduate school. If this is the graduate’s plan, then the advice is to be passionate about the research topic that you choose. One does not need to know ahead of time that a particular direction of research is the best possible direction for them, but they should have interest in it. Research often involves small academic questions, and if one doesn’t find these interesting then it can be a bit of a slog. More generally, advice matches other career paths, however: do something that you love, and also choose impactful problems. Even if your own work is a small part of the whole, if you can see the impact of the field it can be exciting all the time. If the graduate is not going to graduate school in Physics or a related subject, then they are likely entering a technical career such as engineering, finance, education, data science, or consulting. Physics is a great basic training for whatever direction someone takes since it trains you to think and problem solve, especially in reducing a problem to its core questions (as opposed to building encyclopedic knowledge of relevant facts). But, whatever specific career path a graduate takes will likely bring more specialized methods, knowledge, and applications. Physics is a great starting point, but future endeavors will broaden thinking to new challenges outside of the rigid rules of physical laws. So, graduates should be willing to, and excited to, adapt to new cultures.
What Chief Scientist skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Nathaniel Stern: Computational and programming skills are always useful in many fields. This will continue, since much of physics is highly specialized and benefits from new advances. Writing and speaking will continue to matter. High quality communication brings success and recognition to one’s technical work. As one proceeds deeper into scientific career, this communication becomes more important, not less. New technologies change the mode of communication, but they do not replace the natural and learned skills that make one effective at communicating with and convincing other.
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Dr. Michael Marchetti: I think it is hard to know how to maximize one's salary potential at the outset, other than being a good team player and having the skills and personality to 'fill in' and pivot as needed by an employer. With scientists, the interest in the scientific questions/problems/goals often times drive the practitioners in the discipline rather than a huge 'paycheck touchdown' type approach.
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Dr. Michael Marchetti: I think that in the next few years, it will be important to have some wide range of skills across a diversity of sub-disciplines. For example, GIS (geographic information skills), R statistical programming language, modern genetic and genomic techniques, computer programming skills etc. Again, it seems that hard and fast borders/walls separating disciplinary fields are breaking down as our knowledge of the larger biological world expands.
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Meghan McGee-Lawrence Ph.D.: Take full advantage of the education and training opportunities offered to you either while you are completing your degree or when you start your first post-degree position. Academic institutions and employers are invested in the success of their recruits and regularly provide professional development opportunities to help folks build up skillsets – so make time to seek out and capitalize on those opportunities when they are offered, and document them on your CV (curriculum vitae) / resumes.
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Lindsey du Toit: Take every opportunity you can to learn, network, and build an effective team of people that bring a greater breadth and depth of skills and expertise to the work on which you will be focusing. Cultivate a life-long sense of intellectual curiosity and learning. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Treat ignorance as an opportunity to learn. Questions demonstrate you want to understand the situation/problem effectively and that you are paying attention. Always demonstrate integrity in your work. It is one of the most valuable traits you can bring to your career. Be kind and supportive of your colleagues.
Lisa Cuchara Ph.D.
Professor of Biomedical SciencesQuinnipiac University
Microbiological Sciences And Immunology
What Chief Scientist skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Lisa Cuchara Ph.D.: The first and foremost would be Critical Thinking. We live in a world where facts can be easily acquired, sometimes even by asking Siri/Alexa/ChatGPT/Google/etc. But critical thinking is timeless and priceless. I can ask anyone on the street what xyz is and they can look it up, but can they provide advice or interpret.
Also being a good steward towards science and being willing and able to communicate not just with peers as we are trained, but also with the public, the politicians, the board members. John Holdren*, stated that Scientists should be tithing at least 10 percent of their time to public service ... including activism. In the ever growing science denialism that is happening in our country being able to communicate science with the public is important. As Peter Hotaz states, "Anti-science propaganda is "killing Americans in unprecedented numbers,""
*Holdren is an American scientist who served as the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues through his roles as assistant to the president for science and technology, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a Research Professor in Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government
Badri Roysam D.Sc.
Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department University of HoustonUniversity of Houston
Petroleum Engineering
What general advice would you give to a Chief Scientist?
Badri Roysam D.Sc.: The fundamentals of the discipline, and critical thinking skills will continue to be important.
What will help Chief Scientists increase their earning potential?
Badri Roysam D.Sc.: Make yourself valuable, and become good at articulating your value proposition.
Alexandra (Sasha) Ormond Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Director of Dual Degree EngineeringMeredith College
Department of Chemistry, Physics, and Geoscience
What hard/technical skills are most important for Chief Scientists?
Alexandra (Sasha) Ormond Ph.D.: This one is tough because it depends on the position! I think what is valuable for a chemist is being knowledgeable of working with instrumentation such as chromatography and mass spectrometry. Employees that are likely more attractive for a job position than another person have had the independent experience of working with instruments and can troubleshoot problems. Employees need to be able to explain the data that they obtained from an experiment and describe what the data mean. (Data is a plural term!) Problem-solving and critical thinking is very important for scientists.
What type of skills will young Chief Scientists need?
Christopher Crawford Ph.D.: Physics has become a more collaborative endeavor, so teamwork skills are more critical than ever. Also, broad education and the ability to make connections between other fields and your research is essential. Unique combinations of cross-disciplinary training will give students a niche of expertise in today's saturated market of advanced degrees.
What type of skills will young Chief Scientists need?
Dennis Doverspike Ph.D.: Seemingly a paradox, there will continue to be a need for very general, but highly fungible, skills and demand for too specialized skills, requiring advanced education. Coding, statistics, and data analysis related skills will remain a hot growth area. The aging of the baby boomers will create demand for medical and healthcare-related regions, especially nursing, nursing aides, and emergency services. Despite the automation of many people facing jobs, there will continue to be a demand for interpersonal and people skills, including various types of sales. The switch to remote work, due to COVID, will create a substantial future market to fill the leadership and managerial skills gap. In many areas of Technology and engineering, it is already challenging to find a combination of technical knowledge and people skills, and this demand will intensify.
Will there be an increase or decrease in demand for Chief Scientists in the next 5 years?
Paul Badger Ph.D.: The demand for skilled research scientists in the healthcare industry or related industries will almost certainly grow in the next five years. There is nearly always a need for entry-level positions, such as laboratory scientists or medical laboratory technicians. The recent increase in pressures placed on the health care sector will likely lead to more hiring as testing facilities, and analytical labs are expanded.
What type of skills will young Chief Scientists need?
David Cool Ph.D.: The skill sets that young graduates will need when they graduate and enter the workforce are similar to and vastly different from just 15-30 years ago. If they are working in a laboratory setting, then the standards are the same; accurate pipetting, the ability to make complex buffers, and understanding how all the necessary equipment in a lab works. However, that is not nearly enough nowadays. The equipment and instrumentation have been expanding exponentially to the point that you will be working with both expensive and complicated instruments to generate a more considerable amount of data than anyone ever thought possible. Standards for labs today will be using digital imaging devices to capture everything from microscopic images, to western blots, to automated living cell analysis using multi-well plates. Multiplexed assays for 27 to 50 to 1050 cytokines and proteins have replaced single marker ELISA. But knowing ELISA will allow you to be trained to do the multiplexed assays. Most pharmaceutical companies have a great need still for 'old-fashioned' HPLC techniques. Every student I have had in my research techniques class, that graduates and goes for a Pharma position, comes back and tells me they asked them if they could run an HPLC.
Some were even given a test to see if they understood the concept. This then leads to mass spectrometry, LCMS, MALDI-TOF, and even GCMS, and everything that has been developed around those basic techniques is now commonplace in most core facilities and Pharma. New methods for flow cytometry, FACS, are necessary for the higher throughput drug discovery types of labs. Molecular biology has evolved from simple PCR machines that could run 24 samples, just 25 years ago, to digital PCR machines that can run 384 pieces today and email the final data to you at home, while you sleep. Knowing how to calculate the PCR data is extremely critical, as it isn't intuitive, and people tend to take short cuts. Knowing how to do that will be vital. Cell culture and working with animals are still common ways to generate data in any lab, and people who have those skills will always have a job. What do all these techniques have in common? They all have evolved to the point that no one is an expert in every one of them. Labs focus and concentrate on the ones they need the most and make use of them over a long period. What a student should develop is what I call a big toolbox. Learn as many of these techniques as you can, and then use them. Understanding that these are all cyclic and that you may get rusty, or the technology will change. It doesn't matter. By being trained in any of these, it will mean that you can be prepared for other things, that you can catch up and learn and update your techniques in your toolbox. This is what any PI running a lab will be looking for, someone who can be trained, and can evolve and adapt to different technologies, know how they work and how they can be used, what the data looks like when it is working well, and what it looks like when it isn't. The people who have these skills will always be employable.
There is a greater need than ever for workers to analyze data and synthesize a reasonable idea about what it means. This means that they must understand their experiments at a deeper level than just pipetting buffers and timing reactions. They must know what is happening, and if there is a problem, first, they have a problem and then how to solve it. Bioinformatics has become one of the fastest-growing fields. The increased amount of data, whether from standard assays run in an ordinary lab or high throughput data, needs more crunching. The future researcher will not be able to get by just knowing how to use a computer stats program but will be required to understand how to run data in R or Python or whatever new data analysis package is coming next. This becomes even more critical as the data becomes more complex, i.e., 27 cytokines analyzed in 3 different tissues over three other times, from 14 different groups, 6 of which are controls, with the rest being toxin and then treatment groups and authorities. A simple two way ANOVA just doesn't cut it. For this, machine learning tools, pattern recognition, neural networks, topological data analysis (TDA), Deep Learning, etc., are becoming the norm and are being advanced and changed to give more and more substance to what the data means. Students who can operate instruments to generate data and run more complex types of analysis on this 'big data' are in great demand. Likewise, learning the computer-generated design of drugs 'in silico' is a growing field that is now required to screen tens of thousands of compounds before generating them in the lab. This will need someone who can think three-dimensionally; even though the software and advanced computers can do that, it helps if your brain is wired that way, at least a little.
Aside from instruments and complex data analysis, consider where the clinical research is headed. With COVID19, the need to quickly advance drugs from potential use to clinical application has undergone an exponential increase. Lives are being lost daily to the lack of a vaccine or medication that can attenuate to any level the impact the virus has on the human body. The future clinical researcher will need to understand how the instruments work and how tests are run, how a vaccine works, how the virus or disease manifests itself, and how to get it under control. This will only be possible if the researcher is familiar with much of what I wrote above. You won't need to be an expert on virtually everything, but you'll need to understand it so you can use it to synthesize new ideas that may be applicable in the clinical environment. COVID19 is a perfect example. One of the early struggles with this virus was how to test for it. Antibodies weren't developed for it in the very beginning, so an ELISA was out.
In contrast, PCR is one of the most sensitive methods to identify genetic material, such as viruses. So, early on, PCR primers were created that could be used to run a PCR to determine if a person had a live virus. However, the first such PCRs had high false negatives and positives. Further refinement led to the creation of PCR primer sets and protocols that allowed for a more accurate and faster test. An advantage that anyone who has been trained in biotechnology will know the basics of developing a test. If it is a PCR, then what goes into that. Suppose it is an ELISA, how it works, and what you need to set it up. Imagine a test strip similar to the one used for at-home pregnancy tests. This came about in much the same way, through experimentation and developing a way to lower the false negatives and positives, to allow a quick, 5-minute test that could determine if a particular hormone was in your urine at a stage of pregnancy when many women may not have realized there was a possibility they could be pregnant. The person entering the workforce that can think in these ways will be employable and will be able to move between jobs and continue with a very successful and enriching career.