There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a research chemist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $34.0 an hour? That's $70,716 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 3,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many research chemists 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 analytical skills, math skills and perseverance.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a research chemist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 12.3% of research chemists included analytical methods, while 7.9% of resumes included laboratory procedures, and 6.4% of resumes included hplc. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the research chemist job title. But what industry to start with? Most research chemists actually find jobs in the manufacturing and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming a research chemist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 36.6% of research chemists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 31.5% of research chemists have master's degrees. Even though most research chemists have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a research chemist. When we researched the most common majors for a research chemist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on research chemist resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a research chemist. In fact, many research chemist jobs require experience in a role such as research assistant. Meanwhile, many research chemists also have previous career experience in roles such as chemist or research associate.
