2013 Flow Cytometry Survey – prepared by stephen.kwok@tufts.edu
In search of more data for our positions, I decided to launch a larger anonymous survey to help us gauge our salaries. If there are specific questions, please contact me, some of the raw data was given to me confidentially, and I cannot release the raw data. Some of the information really points to institutes or companies/regions. I have tried my best to separate based upon region and position, with a USD salary as a converted standardization.
287 Total responses Collected
Experience:
1-2 years 8.8%
3-5 years 24.6%
6-10 years 31.9%
GURU (10+) 36.5%
*** most lower salaries are proportional to experience, ie students or undergrads, but after the 3-5 year category it does not seem that experience benefits you unless you move up to a higher category position.
Industry Jobs: 18.6% Academia Jobs: 83%
Other : 32% (some may overlap)
*** Many jobs in the other category were not strictly flow cytometry jobs, but salaries were comparable to add to the pool of each respective category based on titles.
85% of all positions do not require PhD’s. I suspect almost all do not REQUIRE PhD’s, but the question may have been interpreted as the user actually having a PhD.
Biosafety Levels:
1 | 18.3% |
2 | 54.3% |
2+ | 56.1% |
3 | 5.8% |
4 | 0.4% |
***some may consider HIV more dangerous than simply infected cells in the BSL2+ category, this was pointed out to me in some responses.
Now onto the good stuff:
Technicians located within North America in INDUSTRY
Average salary is $72,000/year
Low of around $50K and a high of $100K
This is a tough category, since a few of the salaries were skewed due to other duties than flow, and some salaries carried other bonuses that in a big city helps, ie free parking or free train passes. In many cases regarding city areas, a parking spot can be $300/month, which is a significant boost in salary if you account for it.
Technicians located within North America in ACADEMIA
Average salary is $50,000/year
Now this is a very interesting breakdown because within each area of the US between East Coast, Mid West, West Coast and Canada there were some major distributions in salary, but in the end they all averaged around $50K anyways!
Canada was pretty even with salaries, although the sample number was smaller. East Coast had a low of $25,000/year but a high of $90,000/year.
*low salary usually due to hiring of 0 experience undergrad/grad students*
MidWest ranged from $30,000/year to $65,000/year. West Coast ranged from $30,000/year to $70,000/year
*The lowest salary was $25K/year and a high of $90K/year for all regions*
For those of you that do not know, traditionally MidWest and/or in between the “Coasts” cost and standard of living is a lot less. East Coast in Boston/NYC and Los Angeles, you could be renting a studio of 400sq ft for over $1,000/month. In some other regions you could be getting an entire house with land for the same price. I separated East Coast from around DC area to the water, and West Coast was easier since it compromises mostly Seattle and California.
Technicians in Europe and other parts of the world was so variable that the data wasn’t very useful. We have high salaries of around $85K/year USD and some confusing data of $7K/year.
Managers Salaries in ACADEMIA
Located within the United States Average $72,500/year
There is a lot of disparity as well between highs and lows. A lot of “managers” do have other duties other than flow, which would affect salaries. Some also are in charge of only small groups of people versus institutes that house thousands of users.
East Coast Averages $77.5K/year with a low of $47K and a high of $140K
Mid West Averages $63K/year with a low of $37K and a high of $115K
West Coast Averages $73K/year with a low of $44K and a high of $135K
The Aussies do well, but as with outside USA, there is less data to get very good averages, which is $97K.
Canada is averaging $67K with a low of $32K and a high of $92K. European data is average of $63K with a low of $36K and a high of $100K.
**Awesome things to note however, there is a LOT of health care and insurance contributions of employees. A lot of people had mentioned a 37 hr work week vs a 40 hr work week. And a standard of 12 week vacation.**
Mangers salaries within INDUSTRY
Average salary is $95.5K
** Most have cash bonus plus stock option at the end of the year, free parking or Train pass, stock options… etc that was mentioned in the technician category.**
An interesting category that popped up was Assistant Manager. This was a small handfull of responses, which average $42K a year. There was enough of these people mentioned in titles to have a separate data point, but with the average value, it might have been worth it to bunch it into the Technician category.
We had a category of Director, or Managing Director. This category I put in separate from managers, as the average salary was higher at $95.5K/year This category was MOSTLY in Academia, although in some biotech companies. There was less variability since the low was $80K and the high was $120, although one outlier was up to $200K.
The last category I made summed up a lot of titles which were: Technologist, scientist I II III, support, research assistant, senior technician, technical specialist, senior tehnologist, operator. Some of these could go into one of the other categories, but I’m not sure how much it would have changed the averages. Admittedly there is a difference in industry between scientist I and III, but in fact, there were not huge disparities in most of the salaries.
In Academia the average was $67K with a low of $33K in a more remote area vs a high of $95K. If I take out the outliers, the average is still around $70K. In Industry the average was $83K with a low of 48K and a high of $125K.
I tried my best to put categories together that kept the data pool large, which in fact did a great job of keeping the mean number together regardless of outliers. Some of the data was misleading, and I kept out the really far or confusing pieces of information out of the average numbers. Hourly wages were converted to 40 hour work weeks, 52 weeks a
year. This assumes you get paid for your lunch hours, and you also get at least 2 weeks vacation. Obviously this is not the case for everyone, but it’s the best I can do to standardize.
It does reflect, however, that Managers do indeed get paid about 45% more than Technicians. In some cases there is definitely merit behind this, but there is probably adjustment/clarification needed on the zero experience, part time, and small lab funds for entry level technicians. Some of the starting salaries are equivalent to what grad students get paid to go to school here in East Coast. Some labs that I know of or have visited are not very busy, and do not serve large groups of people. Some labs are large cores that serve entire institutes/campuses and are non stop busy. You would hope that salaries can be based upon the type of work required. Going from academia to industry nets 30-
45% increase in salary as well as other fringe benefits. Who are we kidding though, we all know that industry pays more right?
Good luck with everyone trying to justify increases in salary. I would hope again, based upon experience, size, types of machinery, duties etc. that you can command higher
salary based upon more duties and work. I was given some sound advice that often times our positions are related to IT (information technology/tech support). Of course this also has a very wide range of salaries, but usually increased based on duties, departments and certification.
