Mathematician Career

mathematician-500If you enjoy math, you might want to consider a career as a mathematician. These professionals work to research, develop and understand mathematical principles as well as analyze data and apply mathematics to solve problems in the real world.

As a mathematician, you might develop new rules or theories in algebra or geometry or use formulas to prove different theories. You might apply mathematical theories to solve practical problems in business or engineering. Mathematicians apply their knowledge to support and improve different business decisions in a variety of fields.

Mathematician Career Snapshot

If you decide to be a mathematician, you have a good chance of holding a federal government job. Other potential employers include scientific research and development companies, colleges and universities, finance and insurance organizations, and manufacturing facilities. You would probably work in an office full time and participate on teams. Deadlines and urgent data requests could require overtime.

Further details on a career as a mathematician are listed below (statistics from the May 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics and Onet Online):

$111,110

is the average yearly salary for mathematicians.

21%

increase in employment between 2014 and 2024.

38%

have a Master’s degree while 33% have a Doctoral degree.

Mathematician Education

Mathematicians have varying levels of education. While some finish only a bachelor’s degree, many others go on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees as well.

Mathematician Job Duties

If you decide to be a mathematician, you might spend the day developing mathematical or statistical models to analyze and interpret data. After you analyze such information, you may be asked to write reports, make recommendations or explain reasons for particular courses of action.

Applied mathematicians may work with chemists, materials scientists, and engineers to do things like analyze the effectiveness of drugs or study the aerodynamic characteristics of new cars. Theoretical mathematicians spend their time identifying, researching, and resolving unexplained mathematical issues.

Mathematician Salaries

If you earn a bachelor’s degree in math, you may be garnering an opening salary of $56,200 according to May 2015 data collected by the BLS.gov. Median pay was around $111,110 in 2015 with top performers in the field earning upwards of $167,250 each year.

Mathematician Job Outlook

Although the number of jobs for mathematicians is projected to grow 21 percent from 2014 to 2024, the total pool is small so the actual number of jobs over a decade amounts to about 700 positions. As technology continues to infiltrate our lives, more digitally stored data will require greater analysis, creating these new positions.

Mathematician Skills & Traits

Mathematician Skill Set:Required Abilities:Tools Used by Mathematicians:Typical Work Activities:
• Mathematics
• Complex Problem Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Reading Comprehension
• Active Learning
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Number Facility
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning
• Information Ordering
• High capacity removable media drives
• Mainframe computers
• Notebook/laptop computers
• Optical disk drives
• Analytical or scientific software
• Working with computers
• Analyzing computers
• Problem solving
• Getting information
• Creative thinking

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