Datascience in Towards Data Science on Medium,

Data Science Salary Breakdown 2024

12/19/2024 Jesus Santana

Glassdoor vs ZipRecruiter vs PayScale: U.S. comparisons to 2022

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Average (with some popular companies)
3. United States City Breakdown
4. Seniority Breakdown
5. Summary
6. References

1. Introduction

This article is intended for those curious about salary breakdowns in data science for 2024 in the United States. If you have been following me for a few years, you will notice this article is familiar, which resulted in some interesting comparisons from 2022 averages to 2024. This information can be useful to make career decisions, whether for your current position or when interviewing for a new one. As you may know, data can vary, and therefore reporting varies as well. Increases or decreases in salary can be the result of many things, like inflation [2] for example, which in 2022 was 6.5%, and in 2024, it is at 2.7%. With that being said, we can look at three popular sites that report data science salaries to gain a better understanding of expectations. Keep reading if you want to know the ins and outs of data science salaries for this year, and if you would like to compare data from three sites all in one article, as well as compare 2024 to 2022.

A few very important caveats to the reporting:

• These salaries are either self-reported or generated from an estimate.
• Because of how this data is reported, there can be many inaccuracies and biases.

Glassdoor → salaries are mainly self-reported — unless, when there is not enough information from employees, a predictive tool produces a salary estimate, considering inflation trends, competitors, and more.

ZipRecruiter → salaries are mainly relied on from the job postings as well as a compensation estimate which factors in job title, job location, and the hiring company itself.

PayScale → salaries are mostly self-reported. It does not modify or blend data based on inflation adjustments or apply cost-of-living differentials as companies are already accounting for that.

2. Average (with some popular companies)

You can slice a salary in most ways that you can slice any data, by a min, max, std, average, median, etc. For this section, we will look at the average values in US dollars. Keep in mind that salaries can be a combination of several things like base pay, bonuses, stock options, etc.

Glassdoor Averages:

The salaries are reported here [4]. Disclaimer: these figures were last reported on June 6th, 2024, which is the most up-to-date for this site. It is not quite the full year 2024, but it can still be indicative of this year. I will also include the 2022 averages for quick comparison. All the ones below are base pay (other than the main average which does include additional pay).

• Average: $161,921 (base pay $116,526 + additional pay $45,395)
• Meta: ~$173,000 ($160,000 in 2022 — a pretty big improvement!)
• IBM: ~$150,000 ($138,396 in 2022 — a pretty big improvement!)
• Oracle: ~159,000 ($157,797 in 2022 — nearly the same)
• Google: ~$171,000 ($152,987 in 2022 — a pretty big improvement!)

I was happy to see some increases from two years ago; however, you will notice this trend does not hold true, actually the opposite, for non-large tech companies.

ZipRecruiter Averages:

The salaries are reported here [5]. These numbers are very recent, updated on November 24th, 2024.

• Average: $122,738 ($119,587 in 2022)

Payscale Averages:

The salaries are reported here [6]. This data was updated as of November 19th, 2024, so we can put a little bit more weight on these numbers when compared to Glassdoor.

• Average: $101,133 ($97,358 in 2022)

As you can see, there is some expected variation in these averages across different sites. The one that is the most different — or the —is Payscale, while Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter are the most similar. Keep in mind that countless factors can contribute to an average salary report, whether that be the number of reported salaries, or the accuracy of the site in general for other various reasons, to missing data. Now that we understand the average data science salary better, let’s look at a city breakdown.

3. United States City Breakdown

We can use the same references for the following reported data below. City breakdown meaning has changed a lot recently with world events and work-from-home or remote almost NOT becoming the norm. Does city-specific salary matter? Will salaries normalize as people move and exchange to different cities and more rural areas? Regardless, some people and companies will still be city-centric and even if working remotely, you might be able to justify the salary there if it has a higher cost of living, etc.

Glassdoor Averages:

I will be looking at random cities that can show a wide variety of salaries, some big, some smaller, with different costs of living, amongst other differences.

• Dallas, Texas: $111,201 ($119,401 in 2022 — a decrease!)
• New York, New York: $125,846 ($119,343 in 2022)
• Miami, Florida: $117,706 ($106,077 in 2022)
• Seattle, Washington: $140,341 ($132,464 in 2022)
• Galveston, Texas: $95,717 ($119,281 in 2022 — a huge decrease!)

Note: I was surprised how similar these very different cities are and perhaps there is some homogenization between cities already. I was also somewhat surprised to see Seattle have the highest average by far, which does make sense in general because of the number of big companies, but was expecting to see New York be the highest in this sample.

A new surprise is that Dallas and especially Galveston, Texas decreased quite a bit!

ZipRecruiter Averages:

In this report, we will look at the two highest average salaries from 2022 and three other most searched cities in 2024.

• Santa Clara, California: $143,030 ($147,475 in 2022 — a small decrease)
• San Francisco, California: $144,607 ($142,726 in 2022)
• New York, New York: $134,280
• Atlanta, Georgia: $116,627
• Montreal, Quebec, Canada: $119,515

California unsurprisingly dominated the top two. It was interesting to compare a non-US city; however, it was pretty similar.

Payscale Averages:

I will be looking at a few random cities here.

• New York, New York: $112,283 ($107,748 in 2022)
• Atlanta, Georgia: $98,820 ($93,472 in 2022)
• Los Angeles, California: $107,615 ($101,453 in 2022)
• Chicago, Illinois: $100,240 ($93,042 in 2022)

Everything in this specific report looks as expected with variation between more expensive cities and somewhat cheaper cities. It is interesting how Payscale has a more optimistic outlook on salaries compared to Glassdoor.

4. Seniority Breakdown

Seniority can be defined as years of experience, or the job title, for example, 0–1 years experience, or junior data scientist.

Glassdoor Averages:

• 0–1 Years: $110,178 ($118,893 in 2022)
• 1–3 Years: $118,093 ($127,273 in 2022)
• 4–6 Years: $126,188 ($134,923 in 2022)
• 7–9 Years: $132,500 ($140,803 in 2022)

You will notice that sadly, all of these roles, regardless of seniority, have decreased anywhere from ~$8,000 to $9,000 annually.

ZipRecruiter Averages:

The following breakdown is unique, which I found pretty interesting. It describes salaries from data science roles and data science-related roles that are higher in position, and perhaps the peak of seniority for certain companies.

• Principal Data Architect: $166,502 ($202,916 in 2022 — a huge decrease!)
• Director Data Science: $154,873 ($201,590 in 2022 — a huge decrease!)
• Staff Data Engineer: $99,330 ($177,857 in 2002 — a huge decrease!)
• VP Data Science: $142,460 ($168,888 in 2022 — a huge decrease)

These are all very high as expected. The first and third roles are not directly data science, but they are still interesting and could be useful to know. It is also interesting how ‘VP’ and ‘Director’ have a large difference in salary, even though they could be considered the same position.

A newer surprise from 2024 compared to 2022 is a large decrease across the board — some of these are nearly half of what they used to be! I will discuss some factors below at the end of the article.

Payscale Averages:

In this breakdown, we will look at more categorical classifications of seniority in regard to data science salaries:

• Entry-Level: $86,906 ($85,456 in 2022)
• Early-Career: $96,204 in 2022 — can expect about the same
• Mid-Career: $110,782 in 2022 — can expect about the same
• Experienced: $123,303 in 2022 — can expect about the same

Overall, these seem a little low, which does beg the question: how will inflation affect data science salaries, and by how much? I was unable to get new data for 2024 on the last 3 levels, but I would assume they would be similar to the Entry-Level, where it is about the same or a small increase.

5. Summary

Talking about salaries can be taboo, but it does feel like that is shifting with more companies being more transparent upfront — where some now are even required to include the salary in the job description. Countless factors can affect salary like city, seniority, specific skills, negotiation skills, inflation, remote work, etc. With that being said, it is useful to look at a variety of reports on salary to gain the best sense of data science salary.

Surprising differences from 2022 to 2024:

As we saw above, several averages of salaries slightly increased but more surprisingly some decreased — by a lot, whether that was from a company or city, etc. Here are some of the reasons why I think the salaries changed, and more specifically, why they deceased in just 2 years, where you would expect them to normally all increase across the board:

• Inflation overall — as inflation decreases, salaries can too
• More data science salaries reported — more new jobs that are entry-level
• A worsening economy (sadly, the cost of living is higher though — and there can be inflation effects for not just consumers but companies as well)
• Less funding (the tech bubble popping and/or startup craze has seemed to decrease)
• Companies already have an established data science team (as data science was fairly new a few years ago)
• The rise of artificial intelligence — new tools are making it easier for people like data analysts and really anyone to use data science models, while some tools make it easier to build them — which would mean less of a demand for higher-paying data science jobs
• More supply - companies can be picky
• Perhaps longer after 2020, some companies actually had more money, and more specifically, more stock investment, as people started to save more and there was a short time where the economy was maybe — overly confident
• A switch from remote to in-office; companies now have to pay more for in-office food, supplies, events, etc. (I’m bolding this one because I think it is a big contributor.)

To summarize, here were the three breakdowns we dicussed:

* Average (with some popular companies)
* City Breakdown (United States only)
* Seniority Breakdownbetween Glassdoor vs ZipRecruiter vs PayScale

Key takeaways and action items:

• When negotiating salary, understand that recently, there has been a decrease for some cities, companies, or roles.
• Make your case with the market rate — as you can see, there are pretty large differences between even just three salary aggregation sites.
• When looking at a job description, some non-data science roles like data analyst or business analyst will include data science responsibilities — don’t be afraid to bring that up to boost your negotiating power.
• Some salary averages have gone down, but bonuses have stayed the same or even have increased — make sure you are asking about non-base salary numbers like bonuses, stocks, and performance increases — when these are added and/or compounded over even just a year or so, they might then match your total compensation expectations.
• Overall, keep in mind there are going to be some biases and inaccuracies in self-reporting as well as some inaccuracies from estimates themselves. Only use this article as a starting point.

I hope you found my article both interesting and useful. Please feel free to comment down below if you agree or disagree with these particular reports. Why or why not? What other factors and websites do you think are important to point out regarding data science salary information? These can certainly be clarified even further, but I hope I was able to shed some light on data science salary. Also, please comment down on other cities you would like me to report on across various sites, whether that is in the United States or somewhere else.

I am not affiliated with any of these companies.

Please feel free to check out my profile, Matt Przybyla, and other articles, as well as subscribe to receive email notifications for my blogs by following the link below, or by clicking on the subscribe icon on the top of the screen by the follow icon, and reach out to me on LinkedIn if you have any questions or comments.

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6. References

[1] Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash, (2017)

[2] COINNEWS MEDIA GROUP LLC, US INFLATION CALCULATOR, (2008–2024)

[3] Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash, (2017)

[4] Glassdoor, Inc. “Glassdoor”, How much does a Data Scientist make?, (2008–2024)

[5] ZipRecruiter, Inc., Data Scientist Salary, (2022, 2024)

[6] Payscale, Inc., Average Data Scientist Salary, (2022, 2024)

[7] Photo by NASA on Unsplash, (2015)

[8] Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash, (2018)

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Data Science Salary Breakdown 2024 was originally published in Towards Data Science on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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