Senior research specialists are experts who carry out research projects and designs with fellow junior research specialist teams. Your job requires you to propose and implement new techniques to improve productivity, sales, and research quality. You will also be needed to oversee and monitor daily laboratory experiments and tasks, ensure timely completion of tasks, and prepare documentation of all experimental procedures. Furthermore, you are to respond to questions, fix problems, report damaged or faulty equipment, and write appropriate financial proposals to funding agencies. Also, you are to supervise or assist in training, advising, and guiding junior researchers and students.
Senior research specialists must have very good knowledge of research principles and scientific methods, be computer literate, and showcase outstanding analytical and interpersonal skills. You also need a bachelor's degree in science or a related field to get this job. With these requirements met, you will earn an average yearly salary of $54,686 or $26 an hour.
How to Become a Senior Research Specialist
What is a Senior Research Specialist
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Senior Research Specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $30.24 an hour? That's $62,908 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 20% and produce 139,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Research Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many Senior Research Specialists 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, Detail oriented and Communication skills.
How To Become a Senior Research Specialist
If you're interested in becoming a Senior Research Specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 58.1% of Senior Research Specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 20.7% of Senior Research Specialists have master's degrees. Even though most Senior Research Specialists have a college degree, it's possible 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 Senior Research Specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a Senior Research Specialist, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Senior Research Specialist resumes include Doctoral Degree degrees or Associate Degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Senior Research Specialist. In fact, many Senior Research Specialist jobs require experience in a role such as Research Assistant. Meanwhile, many Senior Research Specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as Research Specialist or Research Associate.
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Senior Research Specialist Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of Senior Scientist you might progress to a role such as Manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title Service Manager.
Senior Research Specialist Jobs You Might Like
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Average Salary for a Senior Research Specialist
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Senior Research Specialist Demographics
Senior Research Specialist Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among Senior Research Specialists, 54.5% of them are women, while 45.5% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among Senior Research Specialists is White, which makes up 69.0% of all Senior Research Specialists.
- The most common foreign language among Senior Research Specialists is Spanish at 34.5%.
Find the best Senior Research Specialist job for you
Senior Research Specialist Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Senior Research Specialist Jobs - $93K and Up
- Work From Home Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Entry Level Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Part Time Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Senior Research Specialist Jobs
Top Colleges for Senior Research Specialists
1. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Private
4. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Private
5. Ball State University
Muncie, IN • Private
6. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
7. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
8. University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lincoln, NE • Private
9. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
10. Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN • Private
Find the best Senior Research Specialist job for you
Senior Research Specialist Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Senior Research Specialist Jobs - $93K and Up
- Work From Home Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Entry Level Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Part Time Senior Research Specialist Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Senior Research Specialist Jobs
Online Courses For Senior Research Specialist That You May Like
This course presents critical concepts and practical methods to support planning, collection, storage, and dissemination of data in clinical research. Understanding and implementing solid data management principles is critical for any scientific domain. Regardless of your current (or anticipated) role in the research enterprise, a strong working knowledge and skill set in data management principles and practice will increase your productivity and improve your science. Our goal is to use these mo...
The Essentials of Clinical Trials - Clinical Research for Beginners...
This course will provide learners with an introduction to research data management and sharing. After completing this course, learners will understand the diversity of data and their management needs across the research data lifecycle, be able to identify the components of good data management plans, and be familiar with best practices for working with data including the organization, documentation, and storage and security of data. Learners will also understand the impetus and importance of arc...
Top Skills For a Senior Research Specialist
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, 15.4% of Senior Research Specialists listed Research Projects on their resume, but soft skills such as Analytical skills and Detail oriented are important as well.
Best States For a Senior Research Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a Senior Research Specialist. The best states for people in this position are Delaware, North Carolina, Washington, and New Jersey. Senior Research Specialists make the most in Delaware with an average salary of $100,267. Whereas in North Carolina and Washington, they would average $85,072 and $83,070, respectively. While Senior Research Specialists would only make an average of $81,054 in New Jersey, 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. District of Columbia
$98,069
Avg. Salary
2. Delaware
$100,267
Avg. Salary
3. Minnesota
$80,855
Avg. Salary
How Do Senior Research Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Senior Research Specialist 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 Senior Research Specialists and discovered their number of Senior Research Specialist opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Johns Hopkins University was the best, especially with an average salary of $57,643. University of Illinois Springfield follows up with an average salary of $65,195, and then comes The University of Arizona with an average of $62,330. 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 Senior Research Specialist. The employers include Capital Group Companies, Huron Consulting Group, and Gartner
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