Compensation of Academic Research Computing and Data Professionals

Abstract

Previous work identified low compensation levels as a barrier to recruitment and retention in the Research Computing and Data (RCD) field. In order to better understand the characteristics of RCD compensation, a 2021 survey of RCD professionals in the United States gathered salary information from 480 full-time, currently-employed RCD professionals, including 394 respondents working at non-medical academic institutions. The median salary reported for academic institutions was $90,000 ($80,000 for individual contributor levels), with variation observed across respondents' position levels, gender, ethnicity, education, years of experience, and geography. While RCD roles require a combination of expertise in two fields - research and technology - the median compensation for academic RCD professionals falls below that for either of these fields independently. The variation in compensation within the academic RCD field is also found to be less than the variation in the non-academic technology industry or for academic research faculty positions, with salary ranges limited at the upper end. Smaller differences in compensation between respondents based on years of experience and education were observed compared to the broader labor market. Further research with data from more RCD professionals is needed for a complete analysis of compensation within the RCD field.