2017 Data Science Salary Survey

Chapter 1. Executive Summary

IN THIS FIFTH EDITION OF the O’Reilly Data Science Salary Survey, we analyze input from nearly 800 participants from 69 countries, 42 US states, and Washington, DC. We explore everything from salaries and bonuses to tools, cloud providers, and reporting. We also investigate how interpersonal skills— aka soft skills—might be affecting salaries.

Key findings include the following:

• We tie the drop in share of US respondents to a rise in international companies starting and growing their data organizations.

• Those who self-assess as having the best bargaining skills make substantially more than others.

• The larger the company, the higher the salary.

• Python usage is up: 63% from last year’s 58%.

• Although two-thirds of respondents use Windows to accomplish at least some of their work, that’s down from 74% last year.

• Spark and Spark MLlib are gaining in popularity, and worth keeping an eye on.

• Global median salary is $90,000 (USD).

With five years of data, our results are consistent enough to reliably identify change and trends. When we see an increase in, for example, the popularity of a programming language, we can recognize a real change in the data ecosystem, and one to which it’s worth paying attention. There are a few surprises this year, but most of the data is consistent with past results.

Note

We analyze input from nearly 800 participants from 69 countries, 42 US states, and Washington, DC.