American Data-Job Salaries

Research
Python3
Data-Viz

An analysis of the salaries paid for data related jobs in North America since 2020

A US dollar bill with scrabble letters spelling out salary sitting atop a table

Project Description

This is an in-depth analysis of the salary details for North American employees whose employers are also located in North America.

Demographics

The cleaned dataset contains 4 years of salary details for Data-related careers from 2020 to 2023 and comprises 8,080 records.

  • 28 collected in 2020
  • 87 collected in 2021
  • 1,323 collected in 2022
  • 6,642 collected in 2023

The Data job categories reported include:

  • Data Analysis
  • Machine Learning and AI
  • Data Management and Strategy
  • Cloud and Database
  • Data Engineering
  • Data Quality and Operations
  • BI and Visualization
  • Leadership and Management
  • Data Architecture and Modeling
  • Data Science and Research

The participants reported the following experience levels:

  • Entry-Level
  • Mid-Level
  • Senior
  • Executive

The following work settings were assessed:

  • In-Person
  • Remote
  • Hybrid

Salary Data

The maximum reported salary across all categories over the 4 years is $450,000.00 for a Mid-level Research Scientist while the minimum reported salary stands at $24,000.00 for an Entry-level Data Scientist. The median salary is $150,000.00, representing 2.48% of the total reported jobs.

Salary correlates positively with experience level (0.21, highest reported) and inversely with work location (-0.046, lowest reported). On average, employees with more experience report higher salaries, while the location of work has a minimal effect on reported salary. Full-time, in-person employees are the highest paid, closely followed by full-time remote employees. “Machine Learning and AI” claims the title of the highest-paying job category for both in-person and remote data professionals, while “Data Architecture and Modeling” proves most lucrative for hybrid employees.

Approximately 99% of the data has been obtained in the most recent period, making it the most significant for analysis. The median salary reported across experience levels for full-time employees has remained relatively stable over the last 2 years across work settings and experience levels. The sharpest spikes, both positive and negative, have been observed in Entry-Level positions, indicating that they have the most variability in pay most recently. Senior-level positions showed an overall positive median salary increase while Mid-level positions showed an overall decrease. Executive-level salary stayed neutral most recently.

Data Source

The salary data analyzed in this assessment originated from Kaggle. The complete dataset contains salary trends for data-related careers on a global scale. To narrow our focus to the most pertinent information and address a data skew, it was refined to isolate records exclusively related to North American employers and employees.

Sample Visuals