Forum:Bioinformatician vs. wet-lab scientist saleries in industry

Question

[benjamin.hebisch]

How is the salary of a bioinformatician compared to a wet-lab scienstist (both hold a PhD) in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry?

[Istvan Albert]

I think this is an overly difficult comparison to undertake. The wet-lab has very many more and very different job categories and the typical duties and responsibilities are so different that even if you found such a comparison it would not be all that meaningful.

[cdsouthan]

The whole industry sector would be in much better shape if folk were encouraged and rewarded for doing both concurrently

[Istvan Albert]

but is it realistic to expect that? I think each require such a different skill set that having both in the same person is very rare. It is like saying I need a lumberjack who is also very good with high fashion.

[cdsouthan]

Not so, many exellent bioinformatitans transitioned from in vitro > in silico. True the reverse is rare but its more about facilitating cross-overs (followed by // working). I posit most Unix folk at least have the smarts to operate a pippete, PCR machine, or even load a sequencer - if they were allowed to...

Answer 1

[DG]

It is my understanding that there are generally fewer PhD level bioinformatics positions available in industry compared to wet-lab PhD-level positions but they are often better paid. Depending on your background you can market yourself as a "data scientist" outside of biotech/pharma, which means there can be stiff competition for good bioinformaticians at that level.

But... from what I have seen, and how I led off, there tend to be far fewer PhD level positions in industry compared to wet-lab PhD level positions. Far more hires are for people with undergrad or Masters + experience. And there are a lot of candidates in that pool...

[Devon Ryan]

Hiring undergrads seems to be country dependent. Most of the ads I've seen here ask for a Masters+experience or a PhD, but that likely has more to do with the German love of the "Doktortitel" (not to mention that there was no such thing as an undergrad until recently).

[User 59]

I've hired post-docs and post-graduate students without a Masters in an industrial setting. But the graduate had a years industrial experience in a bioinformatics post. Quite frankly I'd take that over a Master's most days.

Answer 2

[Jeremy Leipzig]

I think it would be useful for you to aggregate and plot the terms "bioinformatics scientist" and "staff scientist" on Glassdoor.