ML/AIWork

Salary explorer

AI & ML salary explorer

Median advertised pay for AI, ML, LLM and data-science roles — drill into a specialization, country or seniority and the numbers update from live postings.

As of 2026-06-11, the median advertised salary for Data Science roles tracked by ML/AI Work is $116,500 – $205,800/yr (USD), across 2,685 postings that disclose pay (ML/AI Work, dataset v2026.06).

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Data Science roles

$116,500 – $205,800 median / yr (USD)
Advertised floor (salary min) — p25 / median / p75
$0p25 $95K · median $117K · p75 $143K$400K
Advertised ceiling (salary max) — p25 / median / p75
$0p25 $166K · median $206K · p75 $241K$400K

Figures in USD, the most common currency among the 2,685 disclosed-pay postings in this slice.

n=2,685 · as of 2026-06-11 · v2026.06 · methodology ↗

Salary distributionwithin Data Science roles

$0$100K$200K$300K$400K+

Most common advertised floor: $75K–$100K643 of 2,685 disclosed-pay postings.

Median floor by senioritywithin Data Science

Intern
$42K
Junior
$90K
Senior
$118K
Staff
$180K
Lead
$141K
Principal
$152K
Director
$162K
Executive
$143K
Unspecified
$105K

Staff-level postings advertise the highest median floor — $180,000 (n=96).

Median floor by specializationwithin all AI roles

AI Design and Conversation pays the highest median floor ($165K); AI Governance Ethics Policy the lowest ($74K).

Pay transparency by countryshare of postings disclosing pay

Only United States postings disclose structured pay (80.9%); the other 11 markets tracked disclose none. The EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) is expected to change this.

Top-paying skillswithin Data Science roles

dbt tops skill pay in this slice — $148,000 median floor (n=78).

Remote vs onsitewithin Data Science roles

$116K
onsite median floor (n=2,235)
$120K
remote median floor (n=450)
$208K
onsite median ceiling
$180K (-13%)
remote median ceiling

Remote postings advertise a comparable median floor but a 13% lower median ceiling than onsite ($180K vs $208K).

AI salary premium by seniorityAI vs non-AI postings · US · midpoint medians

AI roles non-AI roles
Intern
$109K
$62K
+75%
Junior
$110K
$83K
+33%
Senior
$188K
$160K
+18%
Staff
$228K
$200K
+14%
Lead
$202K
$170K
+19%
Principal
$215K
$193K
+12%
Director
$233K
$200K
+16%
Executive
$233K
$225K
+3%

AI postings advertise a +27% median premium over non-AI postings in the same corpus — but the premium compresses with seniority: +75% at Intern level down to +3% at Executive level. The AI premium is an entry-level phenomenon.

Control group: non-AI postings collected by the same pipeline (US, USD, disclosed pay). Within-corpus comparison — one methodology on both sides. As of 2026-06-10.

Cite this

ML/AI Work, "AI & ML salary benchmarks — Data Science roles", dataset v2026.06, n=2685, as of 2026-06-11. https://mlai.work/salaries