Burtch Works 2025 Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Salary Report

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Ranked Top Ten Fastest-Growing Staffing Firms in the United States

The talent market is evolving at an unprecedented speed. Emerging technologies—especially Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science—are no longer peripheral capabilities; they are core drivers of business strategy, innovation, and competitive advantage.

_{Navigating The Talent Landscape with Confidence & Clarity}

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For Talent Acquisition leaders—including Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), Chief Digital Officers (CDOs), and Heads of Insights—identifying and hiring high-impact AI and Data Science talent who can accelerate transformation, optimize operations, and deliver measurable ROI is mission-critical for organizational success.

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The Burtch Works 2025 Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Salary Report equips your executive teams and job seekers alike, with the clarity, credibility and competitive intelligence needed to win in this race for talent. Developed in collaboration with over 470 validated professionals within client and supplier organizations, segmented by job level, region, educational background, and industry, utilizes proprietary first-party data to provide:

Up-to-date salary benchmarks for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science (DS) roles at all levels.
Market trends and talent insights to inform recruiting strategies.
Competitive compensation data to attract and retain top performers.
Assess market value and identify high-impact upskilling paths related to Gen-AI, Machine Learning Ops, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation.

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Whether you’re redefining your AI talent strategy, launching a data-driven transformation initiative, or refining executive hiring frameworks, this report delivers the evidence-based insights required to make confident, high-stakes hiring decisions.

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Why Salary and Industry Insights Matter in 2025:

In 2025, as candidate expectations evolve and the demand for cross-disciplinary skills increases alongside AI advancements, employers need to adopt modern compensation models and hiring practices. This report will offer valuable benchmarks and a strategic roadmap to guide organizations in their effort to hire and retain high-performance talent, and help:

Evaluate internal equity strategy and external competitiveness.
Refine compensation strategies to support effective budget planning and increase employee retention.
Recognize new job titles and skill sets to invest in for defining job requisitions.
Make informed, timely hiring decisions with easily accessible data.

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Burtch Works is excited to share these insights and support your journey toward success!

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2025 Salary & Hiring Themes

The Great Grad Reset

The entry-level market is the toughest in a decade. Savvy companies are acquiring graduates at value prices to build future pipelines.

Fast‑Tracking Gen‑AI‑Savvy Candidates

Fluency with Gen‑AI tooling and related coursework cited in 62 % of promotions enables early‑career professionals to leapfrog traditional ladders.

Manager Titles Are Making A Steady Comeback

As org-scale projects enter production phases, day-to-day executional oversight will place managers back into a high-demand category. Managers are making a rebound of +6% (in Artificial Intelligence) and +7% (in Data Science) after a decline in 2024.

Professional Advancement No Longer Dictated By Tenure.

Competency outweighs calendar time; redesigning career frameworks based on skills demonstration. Proven AI delivery among high-impact individual contributors awarded promotions in less than three years, compared to the five and a half years in traditional software roles.

Advanced Degrees Turbo-Charge Trajectory

The investments talent makes in PhD-level degrees pay dividends, commanding a $25K+ premium in AI-related roles above their senior-level IC counterparts.

2025 Salary & Hiring Themes

2025 Compensation Outlook & Key Findings:

After a slowdown in 2023, hiring activity surged in 2024 with signs of sustained growth in 2025. Competition is intensifying again, particularly for early-to-mid-career professionals. Regardless of geography, gender, education, or industry, AI professionals still command a 9‑13 % cash premium over Data Scientists. The gap is widest where scarce Gen‑AI expertise drives value.

Industries such as Automotive, Industrial, Hospitality, and Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) are investing in talent with advanced degrees in AI. Meanwhile, Private Equity, Customer Retention Management (CRM), Tech, and Consulting prioritize data scientists within thier hiring budget to deliver organizational value.

Not surprisingly, remote AI roles grew by another nine percentage points. While geographic pay differentials narrowed by +/- 4 percentage points, San Francisco and New York continue to be where pay premiums persist. This makes them an opportune location for job seekers to find their next opportunity.

Regardless of where they are, the wage gap between genders persists. The pipeline is improving, but it remains thin at the top. The 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index Report states, "women accounted for 24.1% of CS PhD graduates in 2022–23 and 25.9% in 2023–24. Also reported were lower usage and adoption rates among women's usage of GenAI and adjacent Machine Learning (MLOps) and Large Language Models (LLM) skills, which can seemingly compound pay gaps. However, Deloitte predicts that "The experimentation with and use of generative AI by women will reach or surpass that of men in the United States by the end of 2025, likely to achieve parity within the next year.

For hiring managers, this means publishing role-based salary ranges determined by education level and experience, explicitly highlighting skills premiums. If you're seeking a job in AI and Data Science, quantify your Gen-AI successes to demonstrate your skills-in-use, reference market data during salary negotiations, and include target roles like platform ML, MLOps, or applied LLMs that impact P&L.‍

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