Research and Development Chemist
Career Area: Science and Research
Occupation Group: Chemical and Physical Science
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Research and Development Chemist earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $66,190
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $71,891
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Studies chemical compounds and uses research to support the development of products, including manufactured products, or processes, including industrial processes.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 236 | +6.3% |
| Nationwide | 6203 | +3.7% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Research and Development Chemist is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Chemistry: Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter.
- Product Development: In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market.
- Experiments: An experiment is a procedure carried out to support, refute, or validate a hypothesis.
- Chemical Engineering: Chemical engineering is a branch of engineering that applies physical sciences (physics and chemistry), life sciences (microbiology and biochemistry), together with applied mathematics and economics to produce, transform, transport, and properly use chemicals, materials and energy.
- Biochemistry: Biochemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Research and Development Chemist that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Organic Chemistry: Organic chemistry is a chemistry subdiscipline involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.
- Proteins: Proteins ( or ) are large biomolecules, or macromolecules, consisting of one or more long chains of amino acid residues.
- Polymer Science: Working experience of Polymer Science. Polymer science or macro-molecular science is a sub-field of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics and elastomers. The field of polymer science includes researchers in multiple disciplines including chemistry, physics, and engineering.
- Toxicology: Toxicology is a discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, medicine, and nursing, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating exposures to toxins and toxicants.
- Tech Transfer: Technology transfer, also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the places and ingroups of its origination to wider distribution among more people and places.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 36% |
| 3 to 5 years | 36% |
| 6 to 8 years | 14% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Chemist
- Research Chemist
- Research And Development Uvc Led Specialist - Remote
- Formulation Chemist
- Research And Development Chemist
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