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Pay · 19-2012

Physicists earn $172,250 a year at the midpoint

Where you land matters more here than in most jobs — the top tenth earn more than 3.3 times the bottom tenth. The midpoint is $172,250.

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$172,250median a year · United States
$82.81an hour $171,180average 20,430people
Nine in ten people in this work earn between the two ends. The shaded part is the middle half — where most people are.
$111,72025th $172,250median $222,76075th
$82,11010th percentile $274,11090th percentile
$111,720a year at the 25th percentile, nearer a first job
$225,390best-paying state · Florida
$82,590lowest-paying state · Delaware
+31%top state against the national median
  • Read the spread, not the middle. The median is the midpoint across everyone in the occupation, most of them years into the work. A beginner starts nearer the 10th to 25th percentile, which is why the spread is published alongside it.
  • What the figure counts. The figure counts base pay plus tips, commissions and production bonuses. It leaves out the self-employed, unpaid family workers, private household workers, and the value of benefits or profit sharing.
  • Where you live moves it more than your resume does. National figures. A state or metro area can sit far from the national number, and that gap is usually larger than any difference a resume makes.
  • Not in these numbers. Growth and annual openings are not in this dataset. They come from the separate Employment Projections tables, where an opening is a modelled ten year average and not a posted vacancy.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Retrieved through the BLS Public Data API on 2026-08-13. bls.gov/oes “BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.”

Among the best-paidNumber 10 of 788 occupations by median pay — in the top five per cent.
State matters a lotThe same job pays $225,390 in Florida and $82,590 in Delaware — a gap of $142,800 a year.

Physicist earnings, from starting pay to the highest 10%

Pick the job, where you work and how long you have done it. The range comes from the published wage percentiles for that job.

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When they ask “What are your salary expectations?”

An estimate from survey percentiles, not an offer. Employer, industry, shift and credentials move pay within and beyond this range. Full wage page for this job →

Adjacent work, and what it pays

Occupations in the same group of the federal classification — the usual next steps, or the ones beside this one.

Physicists$172,250
Physical Scientists, All Other$122,570−$49,680 Materials Scientists$117,790−$54,460 Hydrologists$96,600−$75,650

No. 10 of 788 by median pay

Better paid than 99% of the occupations in the survey.

  1. 8 Industrial-Organizational Psychologists $193,950
  2. 9 Computer and Information Systems Managers $175,140
  3. 10 Physicists $172,250
  4. 11 Architectural and Engineering Managers $171,270
  5. 12 Dentists $170,950

Examples

Resumes made for this kind of work.

Real sheets, filled in end to end — for this job and the ones beside it.

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Physicist pay rate, hourly to yearly

Starts at this job’s median. Change the rate or the hours; a full-time year is 40 hours for 52 weeks.

$172,245a year

Physicist wages, state by state

The 40 states where the most people do this work, of 43 with a published figure: their medians range by 2.73 times. Figures are the 2025 survey.

State Median a year Where most start 10th to 90th Employed
Florida $225,390 $113,240 $113,240 — $308,580 340
New Hampshire $214,030 $96,760 $96,760 — $301,570 30
Pennsylvania $210,990 $88,300 $88,300 — $261,820 230
California $207,490 $125,390 $125,390 — $296,740 5,930
Oregon $200,320 $104,370 $104,370 — $315,910 90
Oklahoma $200,050 $61,380 $61,380 — $249,780 40
Texas $184,040 $69,960 $69,960 — $289,950 580
New York $181,970 $80,000 $80,000 — $292,950 1,140
Kentucky $180,910 $65,860 $65,860 — $282,000 50
Connecticut $180,300 $104,750 $104,750 — $303,910 60
Iowa $178,110 $83,830 $83,830 — $292,990 110
Maryland $174,390 $105,560 $105,560 — $219,450 1,200
North Carolina $174,180 $64,050 $64,050 — $256,860 150
Wisconsin $173,120 $89,310 $89,310 — $291,910 180
Minnesota $171,220 $131,870 $131,870 — $336,740 110
Louisiana $166,240 $85,360 $85,360 — $214,090 40
New Mexico $165,340 $120,720 $120,720 — $235,180 580
Tennessee $165,010 $88,610 $88,610 — $239,850 240
New Jersey $163,270 $100,490 $100,490 — $289,830 470
Ohio $162,900 $64,860 $64,860 — $239,360 630
District of Columbia $157,040 $86,820 $86,820 — $202,360 480
Utah $156,760 $64,090 $64,090 — $258,690 30
Nevada $154,030 $102,580 $102,580 — $220,070 50
Virginia $145,040 $97,720 $97,720 — $238,570 940
Georgia $144,870 $79,860 $79,860 — $288,170 160
Missouri $140,460 $70,550 $70,550 — $276,590 90
Alabama $139,330 $74,290 $74,290 — $227,790 280
South Carolina $138,400 $106,510 $106,510 — $228,440 420
Illinois $137,140 $81,830 $81,830 — $221,380 1,590
Arkansas $135,820 $110,390 $110,390 — $214,000 60
Washington $134,790 $77,860 $77,860 — $238,430 450
Arizona $130,500 $102,160 $102,160 — $242,730 120
Mississippi $129,970 $64,980 $64,980 — $219,440 80
Hawaii $117,190 $77,190 $77,190 — $383,510 40
Massachusetts $106,410 $82,050 $82,050 — $213,150 1,150
Indiana $105,940 $64,000 $64,000 — $220,040 230
Colorado $104,580 $82,340 $82,340 — $210,950 1,050
Montana $103,800 $53,500 $53,500 — $237,520 30
Michigan $94,520 $64,380 $64,380 — $248,500 510
Delaware $82,590 $64,570 $64,570 — $293,950 50

No estimate is published for 1 states: the survey withholds a figure when too few employers report it. Nothing has been filled in for them.

Writing a resume for physicists

Name the job in the builder and the duties, skills and credentials it is screened on are written in for you.

PythonThe MathWorks MATLABC++Formula translation/translator FORTRANCMaplesoft MapleOracle JavaMathsoft Mathcad
  • Analyzed data from research conducted to detect and measure physical phenomena.
  • Reported experimental results by writing papers for scientific journals or by presenting information at scientific conferences.
  • Performed complex calculations as part of the analysis and evaluation of data, using computers.

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Questions people often ask

What is a physicist’s yearly income?

A physicist makes a median of $172,250 a year (2025 survey). The middle half earn between $111,720 and $222,760.

What is a physicist’s hourly pay rate?

The median pay rate is $82.81 an hour; the average is $171,180 a year.

What is the starting pay for a physicist?

Starting pay is usually near the 25th percentile, $111,720 a year, and sometimes as low as the 10th, $82,110.

Which state pays physicists the most?

Florida, with a median of $225,390 a year.

How many people work as physicists?

About 20,430 in the United States — number 10 of 788 occupations by median pay.

Jobs that pay about the same

Median pay within $5,460 of what physicists earn — $172,250 a year — but not always the same spread.

See all 788 occupations