Hospitals and doctors' offices pay data scientists below the US median

General medical and surgical hospitals paid data scientists a median of $101,520 a year in May 2025, and doctors' offices paid $90,790, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates. Across all US employers, the median for data scientists was $120,230. Of the seven detailed healthcare industries where BLS counts at least 500 data scientists, six paid less than that.

What does a data scientist cost with benefits?

About 28% more than the salary, if benefits match the average for professional jobs in private industry. In June 2026, private employers spent an average of $73.69 an hour on pay and benefits for workers in professional and related occupations, BLS's survey of employer costs found. BLS counts $50.98 of that as wages and salaries and $6.78 as paid leave, such as vacation and holidays. An annual salary already covers both, because it keeps paying during leave. The other $15.93 an hour is the cost on top of the salary. It pays for insurance, retirement plans, legally required benefits such as Social Security and Medicare, and supplemental pay such as overtime and year-end bonuses. At that rate, a hospital data scientist paid the $101,520 median would cost about $130,000 a year in pay and benefits, and one paid the all-industry median about $153,000.

How much does the metro area matter?

By as much as $62,470 among the 10 metro areas where the most data scientists work. In May 2025 the median ranged from $107,640 in the Chicago area to $170,110 in the San Francisco area. These figures cover every employer in each area, not healthcare alone, because BLS publishes its estimates by industry for the nation, not for metro areas.

The 10 areas, most data scientists first:

• New York area: $135,980 median, 23,160 data scientists
• San Francisco area: $170,110 median, 10,460 data scientists
• Dallas-Fort Worth area: $127,750 median, 10,120 data scientists
• Los Angeles area: $129,740 median, 9,850 data scientists
• Washington, DC area: $132,200 median, 9,260 data scientists
• Seattle area: $164,740 median, 8,370 data scientists
• Chicago area: $107,640 median, 7,940 data scientists
• Boston area: $132,040 median, 7,930 data scientists
• Atlanta area: $108,940 median, 6,820 data scientists
• Philadelphia area: $109,910 median, 6,480 data scientists

What does the chart leave out?

Benefits and some kinds of bonus, first. The BLS wage figures cover wages and salaries only, and leave out the employer's cost of benefits such as health insurance and retirement contributions, BLS notes. They also leave out year-end bonuses, stock bonuses, profit-sharing payments and overtime pay.

The chart shows medians, so half of each industry's data scientists earned more and half earned less. Across all employers, the middle half earned between $85,660 and $158,880, according to BLS.

The estimates are not equally precise. BLS publishes a relative standard error for each industry's mean wage, and the smaller it is, the more precise the estimate. In the chart, it runs from 0.2% for general medical and surgical hospitals to 3.6% for other ambulatory health care services. That least precise row is also the only healthcare industry above the US median, and only by $1,280, so read its lead with care.

What it means for a healthcare organization

If you are budgeting a first data hire for 2027, begin with the median for your kind of employer, then look at your metro area and add benefits on top. If the work would not fill a full-time job yet, Choosing between a fractional AI lead and a first AI hire compares the two paths. Kent Applied's Fractional AI and Data Lead provides about four working days a month of AI and data leadership, from $6,000 a month.