# Data Scientists

US SOC code 15-2051. Markdown version of https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/15-2051

Also called: DS, ML scientist, Applied scientist, Senior data scientist, Staff data scientist.

## In brief

In May 2025, [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip) counted **262,440** US data scientists, with median pay of **$120,230** a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is [an estimate](https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/09/how-many-data-scientists-are-there.html) of **50,000** from 2014, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for data scientists: MLOps + AutoML + feature stores, 2019 to 2022.

## What the sources say

### Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 34.6% from 2025 to 2035. Source: [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-2051&ioType=o).

### AI exposure studies

- **59.4%** of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. [Eloundou and others, 2023](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv)

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

## Data Scientists employment and pay by year

- On record since: 1962
- Latest US employment: 262,440 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [2]
- Latest US median pay: $120,230 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [5]
- Outlook: +34.6% by 2035. Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 [21]

### In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

- **Canada** (NOC 21211)
  - Employment, 2020: 14,155. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [3]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 21211 Data scientists, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
  - Median pay, 2020: C$95,000. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [8]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 21211 Data scientists, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.

### All 8 years of cited US data

| Year | US employment | Annual pay (median unless marked) | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2014 | 50,000 (estimate) | n/a | Est., KDnuggets (Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro) [1] |
| 2015 | n/a | $91,000 (estimate) | Est., Burtch Works Study [4] |
| 2018 | 100,000 (estimate) | n/a | Est., KDnuggets (Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro) [1] |
| 2021 | 105,980 | $100,910 | BLS OEWS May 2021 [2] |
| 2022 | 159,630 | $103,500 | BLS OEWS May 2022 (employment) [2]; BLS OEWS May 2022 (pay) [6] |
| 2023 | 192,710 | $108,020 | BLS OEWS May 2023 [2] |
| 2024 | 233,440 | $112,590 | BLS OEWS May 2024 [2] |
| 2025 | 262,440 | $120,230 | BLS OEWS May 2025 [2] |

## Sources (48)

### Employment series

1. [KDnuggets (Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro) — "How Many Data Scientists Are There and Is There a Shortage?" (September 2018)](https://www.kdnuggets.com/2018/09/how-many-data-scientists-are-there.html), KDnuggets
2. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2024](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
3. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Wage series

4. [Burtch Works Study — 2015 Data Scientist Salary Report (entry-level IC median $91,000; manager median $170,000)](https://burtchworks.com/industry-insights/2018-data-scientist-salary-report-highlights), Burtch Works
5. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
6. [BLS OOH — Data Scientists (15-2051) median annual wage May 2022: $103,500](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/math/data-scientists.htm), Bureau of Labor Statistics
7. [BLS OEWS May 2024, national cross-industry estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
8. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Tool eras

9. [Wikipedia — SPSS (founding 1968, early history)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPSS), Wikipedia
10. [Annals of Mathematical Statistics / IMS — John Tukey, "The Future of Data Analysis" (1962)](https://imstat.org/2023/09/30/hand-writing-john-tukey-the-first-data-scientist/), Institute of Mathematical Statistics
11. [Wikipedia — R (programming language) (Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, 1993)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_%28programming_language%29), Wikipedia
12. [History of Information — John W. Tukey Defines Data Analysis (1962)](https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=5357), History of Information
13. [Apache Hadoop — Project History (2006 Doug Cutting, Yahoo! open-source release)](https://hadoop.apache.org/who.html), Apache Software Foundation
14. [Harvard Business Review — "Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century" (Davenport and Patil, October 2012)](https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century), Harvard Business Review
15. [AWS — Amazon SageMaker announcement (November 2017, re:Invent)](https://aws.amazon.com/sagemaker/), Amazon Web Services
16. [LinkedIn Workforce Report — August 2018: Data Science Skills in High Demand](https://news.linkedin.com/2018/8/linkedin-workforce-report-august-2018), LinkedIn Economic Graph
17. [MLflow — Open Source ML Lifecycle Platform (Databricks, first released 2018)](https://mlflow.org/), MLflow / Databricks
18. [BLS National Employment Matrix — Data Scientists 15-2051, 2024-34 projections (33.5% growth)](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-2051&ioType=o), Bureau of Labor Statistics
19. [Hex — Hex Magic AI (collaborative AI-powered notebook, 2023)](https://hex.tech/blog/magic-ai/), Hex Technologies
20. [Medium / AI Analytics Diaries — "500 Data Science Job Posts Analyzed 2026: Here's Exactly What They Want"](https://medium.com/ai-analytics-diaries/i-analyzed-500-data-science-job-posts-in-2026-heres-exactly-what-they-want-eaac5980590b), AI Analytics Diaries

### Forecasts and exposure studies

21. [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, National Employment Matrix: 15-2051 Data scientists (2025: 275.6 thousand; 2035: 371.0 thousand; +34.6%)](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-2051&ioType=o), Bureau of Labor Statistics
22. [Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), "GPTs are GPTs", occupation-level exposure data occ\_level.csv (O\*NET-SOC 15-2051.00, human-rated β 0.594)](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv), OpenAI

### Historical notes

23. [Institute of Mathematical Statistics — "John Tukey, the first data scientist?" (September 2023)](https://imstat.org/2023/09/30/hand-writing-john-tukey-the-first-data-scientist/), Institute of Mathematical Statistics
24. [Wikipedia — Data science (history section: Peter Naur 1974 usage)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_science), Wikipedia
25. [DataScience@SMU — "Data Scientists Who Launched the Field" (Patil and Hammerbacher origin story)](https://datascience.smu.edu/blog/early-data-scientists/), SMU Data Science
26. [McKinsey Global Institute — "Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity" (May 2011)](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/big-data-the-next-frontier-for-innovation), McKinsey Global Institute
27. [Harvard Business Review — "Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century" (Davenport and Patil, October 2012)](https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century), Harvard Business Review
28. [BLS SOC 2018 definitions — 15-2051 Data Scientists (new occupation in 2018 revision)](https://usa.databasesets.com/soc-2018-definitions/detailed/15-2051), US Bureau of Labor Statistics / Standard Occupational Classification
29. [BLS OOH — Data Scientists employment and wages (2022: 168,900; 2024: 245,900)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/math/data-scientists.htm), Bureau of Labor Statistics

### Predecessors & successors

30. [IMS / Annals of Mathematical Statistics — Tukey "Future of Data Analysis" 1962 (statistician-to-data-scientist intellectual lineage)](https://imstat.org/2023/09/30/hand-writing-john-tukey-the-first-data-scientist/), Institute of Mathematical Statistics
31. [History of Data Science overview — Boston College Applied Economics (statistician and quant precursors to data science)](https://appliedeconomics.bc.edu/the-history-of-data-science/), Boston College Applied Economics

### Present-day analysis

- [Eloundou et al. 2024 — GPTs are GPTs (Science)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130), accessed 2026-05-22
- [O\*NET 30.3 — Data Scientists (15-2051.00)](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-2051.00), accessed 2026-05-22
- [365 Data Science — Data Scientist Job Market 2026](https://365datascience.com/career-advice/data-scientist-job-market/), accessed 2026-05-22
- [ODSC — AI & Data Science Survey Report 2025](https://odsc.medium.com/ai-data-science-survey-report-2025-trends-insights-key-findings-27e8313b02d2), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Medium/AI Analytics Diaries — 500 Data Science Job Posts Analyzed 2026](https://medium.com/ai-analytics-diaries/i-analyzed-500-data-science-job-posts-in-2026-heres-exactly-what-they-want-eaac5980590b), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Goldman Sachs — The Jobs AI Is Likely to Boost and Those It May Disrupt](https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/the-jobs-ai-is-likely-to-boost-and-those-it-may-disrupt), accessed 2026-05-22
- [McKinsey — AI in the Workplace 2025](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/superagency-in-the-workplace-empowering-people-to-unlock-ais-full-potential-at-work), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Snowflake — Cortex AI Functions GA (November 2025)](https://docs.snowflake.com/en/release-notes/2025/other/2025-11-04-cortex-aisql-operators-ga), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Databricks — AI/BI Genie Now Generally Available](https://www.databricks.com/blog/aibi-genie-now-generally-available), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Hex Magic AI — Collaborative AI-Powered Notebook](https://hex.tech/blog/magic-ai/), accessed 2026-05-22
- [Databricks — Introducing Genie Code](https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-genie-code), accessed 2026-05-22

How to read these figures: https://futurehistory.earth/methodology. Every figure links to its own source; gaps stay gaps.