22 R&DMagazine March 2007
www.rdmag.com
SALARIES
Improve,
Scientists and engineers working in research labs saw
their salaries improve by nearly twice the inflation
rate on average in 2006, while receiving substantial
bonuses over the same period for their work. From a
career standpoint, most researchers’ opinions of their positions,
their employers, and their career goals have remained both similar
and strongly positive over the past three years.
These and other conclusions were gleaned from R&D Magazine’s
10th Annual Salary and Career Survey. The 2007 edition of this
report is based on 1) a Web-based reader survey on researchers’ job
satisfaction and career goals—this survey was performed in January
2007 with more than 500 responses—and 2) a mail survey spon-
sored by R&D Magazine and performed by Abbott Langer & Asso-
ciates, Crete, Ill., on U.S. researchers’ 2005/6 salary and total com-
pensation levels. This survey was performed in August 2006 with
more than 400 responses from more than 100 organizations.
Changing attitudes
In our last Salary and Career Survey (2005), it was noted that
when researchers were asked where they would like to be in five
years, the number of respondents who indicated they would be
retired jumped from 19% in the 2004 survey to 27% in the 2005
survey. The response to that same question in this year’s survey
dropped back down to 18%. These responses are further verified
when the average age of the respondents is compared and found
to be remarkably similar for all surveys.
This data reflects well on data from other reports on expected
retirement effects. Earlier data revealed that a severe shortage in
researchers in mostly government agencies like NASA was expect-
ed primarily due to an aging researcher workforce. Up to 40% of
the workforce in one government agency alone was expected to be
lost due to retirement effects over a five to 10 year period. Howev-
er, new data reveals that that shortage is, in fact, not occurring.
Analyses of these effects credit researchers with extending t