How To Become A Scientific Consultant: What It Is and Career Path

What is a scientific consultant and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Are you interested in seeing your scientific knowledge put to practical use? Then, consider becoming a scientific consultant! Scientific consultants often work on a freelance basis but may also work for a large consulting firm. They use their background in fields such as biology or chemistry to provide advice and solutions to companies on how to address specific business problems.

Scientific consultants work in a variety of sectors, including health care, retail, pharmaceutical, and energy. To excel in scientific consulting, you'll need to be good at networking, researching, project management, and multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment. Scientific consultants may provide support in the area of product development, risk assessment, or regulatory affairs.

Before becoming a scientific consultant, you'll need quite a bit of expertise in your field. Consulting firms look for exceptional ability and a track record of accomplishment. As a result, to get into this line of work, you'll need strong academic credentials which include a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline.

ScoreScientific ConsultantUS Average

Salary

6.4

Avg. Salary $82,034

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.6

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 5.17%

Black or African American 3.85%

Hispanic or Latino 14.33%

Unknown 3.71%

White 72.70%

Gender

female 36.99%

male 63.01%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

7.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.8

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a scientific consultant

Explore scientific consultant education requirements

Most common scientific consultant degrees

Bachelor's

47.2 %

Doctorate

29.7 %

Master's

20.3 %

Start to develop specific scientific consultant skills

Skills	Percentages
SQL	72.61%
R	7.24%
FDA	3.51%
Laboratory Procedures	2.57%
Experimental Design	2.28%

Complete relevant scientific consultant training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New scientific consultants learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a scientific consultant based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real scientific consultant resumes.

Research scientific consultant duties and responsibilities

Provide SharePoint development and administration, budget and financial reporting; manage invoicing; and develop training manuals and user guides.
Define and document a new application architecture which load client databases with properly format data using in-house develop Java ETL applications.
Support regulatory submissions (ISSs, NDA), CDISC (SDTM, ADaM).

Get scientific consultant experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become a scientific consultant. The most common roles before becoming a scientific consultant include research assistant, research fellow team lead and research associate.

Prepare your scientific consultant resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your scientific consultant resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a scientific consultant resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable scientific consultant resume templates

Build a professional scientific consultant resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your scientific consultant resume.