Science & Research is the field of knowledge generation — advancing understanding, discovering new phenomena, testing hypotheses, and applying findings to solve real-world problems. It covers academic research (universities, colleges), government labs, private R&D (pharma, biotech, engineering, tech firms), think tanks, non-profit research organizations. Roles include research scientists, lab technicians, post-doctoral fellows, principal investigators, research project managers, field scientists, data scientists, grant writers, etc. Education tends to be high: often PhDs (especially for independent research), plus master’s degrees; strong emphasis on publishing, methodology, technical skills, analytical thinking. Funding sources (grants, contracts) play a huge role; often you’ll need to secure funding, manage budgets, write proposals.
$114,882
Average Salary
20%
Annual Sector Growth
3,200
Job offer
118,100
Companies
Data Science / Computational & AI Methods — more reliance on big data, machine learning, computational modeling; many research projects require these skills.
Interdisciplinary / Cross-domain Research — blending across fields: bio + engineering, environmental science + policy, computational social science, etc.
Funding Challenges & Grant Competition — securing grants is increasingly competitive; gaps in funding or delays can significantly affect job stability or research continuity.
Open Science, Reproducibility & Transparency — push toward open data, better reproducibility, preprints, sharing protocols and methods, registration of studies.
Remote Collaboration & Global Teams — researchers collaborate across institutions and countries; virtual labs, field work combined with remote data collection; cloud tools, digital infrastructure more important.
Research design & methodology (experimental design, statistics, reproducibility)
Data analysis / computational skills (Python, R, MATLAB, etc.; handling large data sets)
Grant writing & funding strategy, plus project management (budgets, timelines, deliverables)
Scientific communication (writing papers, reports; presenting; public engagement; sometimes policy translation)
Domain / technical specialization (depending on field: molecular biology, physics, chemistry, environmental science, etc.)