Which Chemistry Field Pays the Most?! (+$157,000/year) | College Financials

Today Im going to tell you how lucrative of a major chemistry can actually be and what fields you need to go into to reap a six figure salary.

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The median pay for a chemist in the US is 77k a year. Now this info comes from the bureau of labor statistics and although this is a pretty good salary it also take years of graduate school to get to this point and it is still far off from a six figure salary.

With this is mind lets start looking at the different ares of chemistry to work in. First is Academia which is what people usually think of when they think of chemistry. Doing intense research and fighting to get papers published day and night. Despite the effort that goes into academia it results in one of the lowest salaries which is 77k or at the median according to the American chemical society. Government and industry both pay significantly higher wages than this. Government at 114k and industry at 120k as you can see industry makes the most in the chemistry field. Now within industry there are multiple avenues that can be taken that will net you different profits. I found some data from the ACS that helped break these down and they are as follows. A quick disclaimer that these are profits relating to having a pHD and that every field in industry at that point makes six figures.

The highest paying fields would be patents which average almost 140k a year. Just above that is health and safety at 145k a year and far above every other field is R&D management at 157k a year. It is also important to note that the bigger a company is the higher salary they will pay you on average. Sadly if research is you passion they only make about 120k a year lagging far behind the more administrative jobs.

Luckily being a straight chemist isn’t your only option. Materials science is a huge blossoming field with great job security and salaries. It shares a lot of similar concepts with chemistry to the point that a chemist can sometimes be transferable and work as a materials scientist depending on the field. The median pay for a materials scientist is 97k a year which blows chemists out of the water and if you are looking to maximize your salary this could be a great field to go into. I personally think if you like the subject area this is a much better field to go into with your chemistry degree and can truly set the foundations for you financial future.