Salary Range

• The average salary for statisticians as of May 2010 was $36.57 per hour, or $76,070 per year, as determined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median salary was a bit lower, at $72,830 per year. The middle 50 percent of statisticians earned $51,630 to $97,330 per year. The bottom 10 percent of the pay scale was at or below $39,090 annually, and the top 10 percent at or above $119,100.
  
  

Types of Employment

• Most statistician jobs require at least a master's degree in statistics or mathematics, but as of 2010 the federal government hires statisticians with bachelor's degrees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The federal government also provides high pay and employs the largest number of statisticians in the nation, at an average of $94,420 per year. Statisticians working for state governments earn much lower average pay, at $47,410 per year. Statisticians also work for colleges, universities and professional schools, making $69,160 per year on average; for insurance carriers at an average salary of $69,420; for scientific research and development services at $85,730; and in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing at $89,800 per year on average.
  
  

Top-Paying Regions

• By state or district, the District of Columbia had the largest concentration of statisticians and also the highest average pay, at $104,180 per year. The top-paying metropolitan area in the country for statisticians was the nearby Maryland region of Bethesda-Frederick-Gaithersburg, where the average salary was $107,830 per year. In the Washington D.C. area, including Arlington and Alexandria in Virginia and parts of Maryland and West Virginia, the average annual salary for statisticians was $92,100.
  
  

Other High-Paying Areas

• West Virginia was the top-paying state for statisticians on average in 2010, at $102,780 per year. Other high-paying states were Massachusetts, at an average annual salary of $92,990, Maryland at $92,540 and North Carolina at $89,400. One metropolitan area besides the greater Bethesda region had an average pay for statisticians of more than $100,000 per year. That was the greater San Francisco area, where statisticians earned $104,730 per year on average.