Mathematicians Salary and Pay
How much do Mathematicians make?
The median Mathematicians worker earns $121,680 a year ($58.50), and the mean annual wage is $122,520. BLS counted 2,220 people in this occupation in May 2024. The middle half of earners make between $85,720 and $153,340.
What Mathematicians actually pay, from the federal wage survey: a $121,680 median, the full percentile ladder, every state's table, and the metros where the jobs and the money sit, on one page.
Updated November 5, 2026
Salary converter for this occupation
Every level in the picker is a published BLS figure for Mathematicians, not a national average. Annual-to-hourly conversions divide by 2,080 hours, the survey's full-time year; top-coded levels use $239,200, the floor BLS prints, so the true figure is higher.
The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
| Pay level | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $63,430 | $30.50 |
| 25th percentile | $85,720 | $41.21 |
| Median (50th) | $121,680 | $58.50 |
| 75th percentile | $153,340 | $73.72 |
| 90th percentile | $187,660 | $90.22 |
The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($63,430) to the 90th ($187,660). BLS suppresses cells that fail its reliability rules (n/p here) and caps the highest wages at $239,200+ a year or $115.00+ an hour; in this ladder that top code appears at the very top rows only.
Employment and concentration
With 2,220 jobs nationally, Mathematicians make up 0.00% of U.S. employment as BLS measured it in May 2024. The map is uneven: Virginia alone holds 400 of those jobs, the top three states hold 36.9%, and the deepest concentration sits in Virginia (location quotient 6.91, where 1.00 is the national average). A quotient above 2 usually signals a local industry cluster rather than evenly spread demand.
Read the ladder as a career path in numbers: $85,720 at the 25th percentile, $121,680 at the middle, $153,340 at the 75th. The full 10-to-90 range runs $124,230, a ratio of 3.0 to 1. Where a specific job offer lands on that range says more about the role's level than the occupation's headline median does.
Pay by state
District of Columbia posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $154,480, and Virginia the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 400 | 0.1 | 6.91 | $141,720 | $142,150 |
| California | 240 | 0.0 | 0.92 | $135,410 | $143,890 |
| Washington | 180 | 0.1 | 3.58 | $156,610 | $137,180 |
| Maryland | 170 | 0.1 | 4.26 | $131,090 | $128,940 |
| New York | 150 | 0.0 | 1.11 | $123,190 | $98,620 |
| Florida | 90 | 0.0 | 0.61 | $104,610 | $105,370 |
| Nevada | 90 | 0.1 | 3.91 | $105,350 | $102,900 |
| Michigan | 80 | 0.0 | 1.25 | $70,900 | $63,430 |
| New Jersey | 70 | 0.0 | 1.07 | $116,290 | $96,620 |
| Colorado | 60 | 0.0 | 1.41 | $114,240 | $108,500 |
| Illinois | 60 | 0.0 | 0.73 | $123,220 | $127,290 |
| District of Columbia | 50 | 0.1 | 5.17 | $168,390 | $154,480 |
| Ohio | 30 | 0.0 | 0.42 | $100,760 | $96,780 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Mathematicians stands number 802 by employment and number 69 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Computer and Mathematical Occupations, the group median wage is $103,790 across 21 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 17% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.0% of the group's 5,192,870 jobs. In 6 of the 13 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $121,680, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.
Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV is the largest metro employer with 220 jobs, 9.9% of the national total. The first table ranks metros by employment; the second ranks them by mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs in the occupation, because a three-person metro can top a pay table by accident.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 220 | $155,500 | $160,510 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 150 | $113,320 | $91,290 |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 110 | $162,500 | $176,000 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 60 | $123,120 | $127,290 |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | 50 | $99,900 | $102,900 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 40 | $155,780 | $149,150 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
The median Mathematicians paycheck, gross, is $4,680 every two weeks on an annual $121,680, which is $10,140 a month and $2,340 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($85,720) to the 75th ($153,340) is worth $67,620 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Gross is a starting point, not a budget: the paycheck calculator nets it down by state, an offer comparison lives in the salary calculator, and the raise vs inflation calculator separates a real raise from a nominal one.
To place a real offer: a salary of $133,848 would sit between the median ($121,680) and the 75th percentile ($153,340), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $85,720, is $35,960 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.
Related occupations in Computer and Mathematical Occupations
Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Network and Computer Systems Administrators, Data Scientists, Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, Information Security Analysts, Computer Network Architects, Computer Network Support Specialists. The full directory is on the Careers hub.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Mathematicians make?
The median annual wage is $121,680 and the mean is $122,520 in the BLS OEWS May 2024 estimates. The middle half of workers earn between $85,720 and $153,340 a year.
Which state pays Mathematicians the most?
By median annual wage, District of Columbia leads the state table at $154,480, based on 50 jobs in that state. By mean wage and by headcount the leaders can differ, so the state table on this page shows all three measures side by side.
How many Mathematicians are there in the United States?
BLS counted 2,220 wage and salary workers in this occupation in May 2024, 0.00% of all U.S. employment in the survey. The largest state employer is Virginia with 400 jobs.
What do the OEWS percentiles mean for Mathematicians?
They mark points in this occupation's pay distribution. One worker in ten earns $63,430 or less and one in ten earns $187,660 or more; the median, $121,680, is the wage of the worker exactly in the middle of the 2,220 counted jobs.