How much does a physicist make?

In the U.S., experience and specialty can matter: senior physicists may do harder, more independent work, and specialized jobs can be in different industries. Employer type and location matter too; pay differs across healthcare, research, government, university jobs, and states.

Conduct research into physical phenomena, develop theories on the basis of observation and experiments, and devise methods to apply physical laws and theories. Excludes “Biochemists and Biophysicists” (19-1021).

What's a typical day like?

A physicist may set up a laser or other instrument, run an experiment, then use a computer to analyze measurements. They compare results with teammates and write a paper or explain their findings at a meeting.

In the U.S., earn a physics bachelor’s, then usually a Ph.D. for research or university jobs; some federal entry jobs require only a bachelor’s. In graduate school, physicists can focus on a specialty such as cosmology.

Graduate degree or long training (preparation level 5 of 5)

Good for people who like figuring things out and building and doing.

To find tau neutrinos, physicists sifted six million particle signatures down to 1,000 candidates—and analyzing the data took three years.