The median is $190K a year. The middle half of listings pays between $155K and $230K.

These are advertised base salaries, taken as the midpoint of each posted range. Bonuses, commission and equity are not included.

How the pay is spread

About one listing in five sits under $150K. One in five sits above $250K.

Data scientist salary by level

Two things stand out. Mid level and senior medians are only $3K apart. The real jump comes at lead and staff, where the median reaches $210K.

The entry-level numbers come from just 36 intern and entry-level listings, so treat them as a rough guide. They also show how few junior data science jobs have a posted salary.

Data scientist salary by city

Remote listings pay about the national median: $191K against $190K. Washington has the third-largest number of listings but pays $17K below the median.

Who pays the most

Median posted salary, companies with at least 3 salaried data scientist listings:

Most of these companies have only a few listings, and a few wide ranges can move a median. OpenAI and Anthropic have the most listings in this group.

FAQ

How much does a data scientist make in the US? The median advertised base salary is $190K a year, with the middle half of listings between $155K and $230K, from 1,136 listings on November 1, 2026.

What is the starting salary for a data scientist? Entry-level listings have a median of $102K. That comes from only 15 listings.

How much do senior data scientists make? Senior listings have a median of $175K. Lead and staff roles reach $210K, and managers reach $226K.

Where do data scientists earn the most? By metro, the San Francisco Bay Area ($229K), New York ($215K) and Seattle ($210K), among metros with at least 25 salaried listings.

Do remote data scientists earn less? In these listings, no. Remote roles have a median of $191K, close to the national $190K.

Does this include bonuses and equity? No. These figures are base pay from posted ranges. Total pay can be higher.

The numbers update daily on the data scientist salary page.

Only 2,542 listings (6.0%) are AI engineer or machine learning engineer roles. So most of the demand sits in other jobs. Together the two groups make 10,687 unique listings, and 8,145 of them are outside the two AI roles.

Which AI skills employers name

One listing can name several skills.

Who gets asked

Software engineers lead by count: 2,692 listings, or 24.5% of the role. Mobile developers are a surprise at 54.3%. Data scientists are at 37.8%, backend developers at 28.1%, product managers at 25.6%.

It goes beyond engineering. Marketing has 389 AI jobs (15.0% of the direction), design has 311 (16.9%), content has 151 (14.6%).

What it does to pay

Comparing all AI jobs with all other jobs says little, because the groups differ in role and level. Holding the role fixed works better. For software engineers:

• listing mentions LLM skills: $214K median advertised base salary, from 1,949 listings
• listing does not: $178K median, from 5,724 listings

That is a gap in posted ranges. It doesn't prove the skill causes the gap, since these listings can also differ in level and employer.

Who is hiring, and where

NVIDIA has the most listings at 282, then Speechify (245), Capital One (215), Walmart (200) and Salesforce (184). In all, 1,714 companies have at least one open AI job.

The San Francisco Bay Area has 4,192 hybrid and on-site AI jobs, 41.4% of its tech listings. New York has 1,898 (34.8%), Seattle 645 (30.9%). 23.3% of AI jobs are fully remote, against 17.7% of all jobs.

One caution

"Experience with LLMs" can mean building models, building on an API, or using AI tools at work. Read what the listing actually asks for.

FAQ

How much do AI engineers make on average? The median advertised base salary is $200K, with most listings between $162K and $248K, from 758 US listings with a posted range on November 1, 2026.

How much do machine learning engineers make? The median is $216K, with most listings between $183K and $260K, from 1,043 listings.

How much do content creators make? In tech and digital job posts the median is $138K, with most listings between $86K and $212K. That comes from only 40 listings, and it covers salaried jobs, not income from a personal audience. Content writers are at $122K, social media managers at $120K.

Which AI skills are most in demand? LLMs (13.0% of all jobs) and AI agents (12.1%), then generative AI (5.7%), RAG (3.1%) and the OpenAI API (2.8%).

Do you need AI skills outside engineering? Some listings ask for them. 15.0% of marketing jobs, 16.9% of design jobs and 14.6% of content jobs are AI jobs by our definition.

Are AI jobs remote? 23.3% of them are fully remote, against 17.7% of all jobs.

The method and the full tables are in the AI jobs report. Pay by role is on the salaries page.

So most job posts do show pay. The catch is where they show it.

The salary field is usually empty

Hiring systems like Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby have a separate salary field. Job boards read it and turn it into a neat badge on the card.

Only 21.6% of the listings with pay use that field. The other 78.4% put the number in the description text. Often it sits near the bottom, under "Compensation" or "Pay range", or inside a paragraph of legal text about state law.

If a job board says "salary not listed", scroll through the original post before you believe it.

A range, and a wide one

Almost every listing gives a range. Out of 28,257 annual listings, only 67 give a single number.

The ranges are wide. The median range spans 35% of its own midpoint. For a $150K midpoint, that is about $52K from the bottom to the top.

Where pay is missing most often

Remote jobs show pay less often: 61.1%. Hybrid jobs: 75.9%. On-site: 69.9%.

Internships are the worst. Only 35.7% list pay. Entry-level jobs: 61.5%. Senior and lead roles: about 74%.

By role, Mobile Developer (48.3%) and Project Manager (49.1%) are at the bottom. Full Stack Developer (77.6%) and Product Designer (76.7%) are at the top.

The state matters even more. Among hybrid and on-site jobs, Washington shows pay in 89.3% of listings, New York in 85.1%, California in 81.0%. Texas is at 49.6%. Iowa is at 10.6%, but one employer holds 96 of its 226 jobs there.

Companies are all or nothing

We looked at 437 companies with at least 20 open jobs. 226 of them show pay in at least 90% of their listings. 45 show it in none.

That gives you a simple trick. If a listing has no pay, open the same company's other listings. A similar role often has the range posted.

A short checklist

1. Read the original post, not just the job board card.
2. Search the page for "$", "salary", "compensation" and "pay range".
3. No number? Check the company's other open roles.
4. Expect a wide range, and compare it with what similar roles post.

FAQ

What percentage of tech jobs show the salary? 69.5% of open US tech and digital job posts give a number for base pay, based on 42,224 listings on October 20, 2026.

Do US companies have to list the salary in a job posting? No federal law requires it as of October 2026. The rules come from states and cities, including Colorado, California, Washington and New York. The list keeps growing, so check your state's labor department.

Why do some employers hide the salary? Where no law requires a range, some employers keep it private to leave room in negotiation or to avoid comparisons between current staff.

How much do software engineers make on average? The median advertised base salary is $188K, with most listings between $150K and $225K, from 7,859 US listings with a posted range on November 1, 2026.

How much do data scientists make? The median is $190K, with most listings between $155K and $230K, from 1,136 listings.

How much do UX designers make? The median is $165K, with most listings between $135K and $198K, from 145 listings.

How we counted: a listing shows pay if it gives a number for base pay, in the salary field or in the text. Bonus, equity and "competitive salary" don't count. We parse pay from text, so a small share of ranges can be misread.

The full breakdown by state, role, level and company, with the method, is here: Salary transparency in US tech jobs. Pay by role is on the salaries page.