Income Percentiles by Occupation and Education Level

Chemists and Materials Scientists

Total Income to Compare: $

Income Percentile Results

Total Income of $55,000 ranks between the 32.8th and 44.9th percentiles for all education levels. These results were estimated off of 84,408 Chemists and Materials Scientists.

50th Percentile (Median) Income for any Education Level: $70,000
75th Percentile: $100,088
95th Percentile: $168,605
99th Percentile: $324,085

See Similar Occupations

Income Percentile Stats

  • To be in the top 1% for this age range, your household would need an income of $324,085 per year. This would include salary, investments, and any business income.
  • To be in the top 5% for this age range, your household would need an income of $168,605 per year. This would include salary, investments, and any business income.

Income of Chemists and Materials Scientists by Highest Education Level

Total Income of $55,000 ranks for education levels:
  • Compared to Doctoral degree holders this ranks between the 13.1th and 18.5th percentiles.
  • Compared to Professional degree beyond a Bachelor's degree holders this ranks between the 19.3th and 26.5th percentiles.
  • Compared to Master's degree holders this ranks between the 26.9th and 40.5th percentiles.
  • Compared to Bachelor's degree holders this ranks between the 41.6th and 55.3th percentiles.
  • Compared to HS Diploma / GED degree holders this ranks between the 21.1th and 41.7th percentiles.

Income Percentile Distribution by Education Level

Highest Level of Education for Chemists and Materials Scientists:
  • Other (N/A or Less than HS): 0.3%
  • HS Diploma / GED: 1.6%
  • Associates Degree and Some College: 5.1%
  • Bachelors Degree: 54.4%
  • Masters Degree: 20.8%
  • Professional Degree beyond a Bachelors: 2.4%
  • Doctoral Degree (PHd) : 15.3%

Most Common Bachelors Degree Majors

  • For Physical Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 40th and 53.3th percentiles.
  • For Biology and Life Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 44.4th and 61.1th percentiles.
  • For Engineering undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 45.9th and 54.8th percentiles.
  • For Business undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 39.6th and 50.3th percentiles.
  • For Medical and Health Sciences and Services undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 30.8th and 41.8th percentiles.
  • For Social Sciences undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 43.5th and 54.2th percentiles.
  • For Environment and Natural Resources undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 32.6th and 48th percentiles.
  • For Agriculture undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 26th and 37.2th percentiles.
  • For Criminal Justice and Fire Protection undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 59.3th and 64.9th percentiles.
  • For Education Administration and Teaching undergraduate majors this income ranks between the 24.8th and 40.2th percentiles.
Note: The source data only records undergraduate degree majors, even if a person continues to study.

Treemap of Undergraduate Majors

Methodology and Assumptions

This data was sourced from the person-level data recorded by the American Communities Survey. The version of the survey used was the most recent 5 year revision for data recorded from 2013-2017. These results represent 84,408 Chemists and Materials Scientists. The occupation code that was used to generate these results e was 1720 to read more about the occupation codes that the ACS and Census use. These results were generated in R using raw data from the ACS and precalculated in a batch. This data includes all individual income for the survey respondent, so some of the people may have a wage job as well as other income sources. I did not limit to wage income, because many occupations have high portions of entrepreneurs (CEOs, doctors, tradespeople).

Exclusions and Filters Applied:
  • Filtered for people who reported working at least 30 hours a week.
  • High School Graduates and GED graduates were original 2 separate categories that I combined.
  • Anything below High School Graduates is combined into a separate category. I did not include these on the page for space reason but I can.
  • The data has data for associate degree holders and some college and these values are mostly in between the high school and bachelors samples. There doesn't seem to be a significant difference between some college and an associates degree.
  • All ages are included and not separated. I did some initial testing and there is a difference if the data is split out by age, but I wasn't able to consolidate the data into a way that would make it fast to interact with and avoid being too complicated.
  • There may be some confusion around a masters degree vs a professional degree beyond a masters. This was a distinction made in the original raw data that I decided to keep. Because the data is collected by polling people individually, some of the respondents may have mixed up the difference depending on how they phrased their response.
    • Masters Degree : MBA, Masters in Something
    • Professional Degree beyond a Bachelors Degree: Law Degree, Medical School, generally these degrees are credentials for specific careers.
    • Doctoral Degree: PHd