Survey Researchers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

The five rows are five different workers in the same occupation, from the 10th percentile ($36,950) to the 90th ($118,730). 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

The occupation employed 7,720 people in May 2024, 0.01% of every job BLS counted. California is the largest employer at 1,090 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 35.4% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in Nebraska, whose location quotient of 4.43 says this work is 4.43 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

The spread matters as much as the center. Earners at the 90th percentile make $118,730, which is 3.2 times the $36,950 at the 10th, a difference of $81,780 annually. Because the mean wage ($73,470) sits above the median ($63,380), a typical offer should be judged against the median and the 25th to 75th percentile band, not the mean.

Pay by state

The state spread for Survey Researchers runs from the $102,410 median in New Jersey down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (1,090 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Survey Researchers stands number 718 by employment and number 353 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations, the group median wage is $84,150 across 48 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 25% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.5% of the group's 1,446,780 jobs. In 15 of the 31 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $63,380, 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 530 jobs, 6.9% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $77,760 a year, against $104,500 in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $63,380 works out to $5,282 a month before taxes, $2,438 per biweekly paycheck, and $1,219 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($46,110) to the 75th ($85,370) is worth $39,260 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $69,718 would sit between the median ($63,380) and the 75th percentile ($85,370), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $46,110, is $17,270 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Soil and Plant Scientists, Economists, Food Scientists and Technologists, Agricultural Technicians, Food Science Technicians, Epidemiologists. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.