Software Developer vs Data Analyst Salary: Which Pays More?

Pay Side by Side

All the figures below are annual wages for the same reference period, so they compare directly. "Entry-level" uses the lowest 10 percent figure, "experienced" uses the highest 10 percent figure, and the middle row is the median — the point where half the occupation earns more and half less. These are wage figures: they do not separate base salary from bonus, profit-sharing or equity.

To read the current amounts, open the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers and the entry for data scientists, then look at the "Pay" tab. O*NET OnLine publishes the 2025 median hourly wage for both occupations.

Two cautions on what those numbers include. The O*NET hourly medians are derived from annual wage data for salaried roles; most developers and data scientists are salaried and exempt from overtime, so an hourly figure is not a rate that rises with extra hours. And at larger employers, total compensation in both jobs often adds an annual bonus and, at publicly traded or venture-backed companies, stock grants. BLS wage data excludes equity, so when comparing offers, treat base salary, bonus target and the vesting schedule of any grant as three separate things.

Location moves both sets of numbers more than most people expect. The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables publish state and metropolitan-area medians for both occupations — look up California, Texas, New York and Washington alongside your own state, and cross-check your state labor department's wage pages, which often publish entry, median and experienced figures from the same survey. One practical limit: BLS reports how many jobs each occupation held in 2025, and the software developer count is far larger than the data scientist count (BLS and O*NET OnLine, 2025), so data scientist samples in smaller states are sometimes suppressed.

Why the Pay Differs

The gap between these two occupations is not about one job being harder. It comes from documented differences in entry requirements, industry mix, and how many of each job exist.

1. The qualification floor is set differently. BLS reports that software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers typically need a bachelor's degree in computer and information technology or a related field (BLS, 2025). For data scientists, BLS reports a bachelor's degree as the typical minimum but notes that some employers require or prefer a master's or doctoral degree (BLS, 2025). ONET's employer survey reflects the same split: for software developer roles it reports the share of respondents saying a bachelor's degree is required for new hires, while for data scientist roles it reports both a bachelor's-required share and a master's-required share (ONET OnLine, U.S. Department of Labor). Where a master's is the practical entry ticket, candidates arrive later and employers price the role accordingly, which lifts the bottom of the data scientist distribution.

2. Industry mix pulls the medians apart. The largest employer of software developers is computer systems design and related services, while the largest employer of data scientists is publishing, broadcasting, and content providers (BLS, 2025). The by-industry tables show the effect: BLS publishes a separate median annual wage for software developers in software publishers and a separate median annual wage for data scientists in publishing, broadcasting, and content providers (BLS, May 2025), and both differ from the occupation-wide medians.

3. Occupation size changes how employers compete. Software developers held far more jobs in 2025 than data scientists did (BLS and O*NET OnLine, 2025). A large occupation has more junior openings, more structured pay bands, and more competition at the entry end from bootcamp and self-taught candidates. A smaller occupation with a master's-level expectation has fewer, more negotiable openings.

4. Projected demand differs. BLS publishes a projected 2025–35 employment growth rate for software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers and a separate 2025–35 rate for data scientists. Faster projected growth tends to support starting pay and tells you how much hiring pressure to expect three or four years in.

5. Neither job usually pays overtime. Both are typically salaried exempt roles, so the O*NET 2025 hourly medians describe what the salary works out to. Comparing either against an overtime-eligible job means comparing total annual earnings instead.

Earnings Over a Career

The most useful thing in the BLS data is not the median but the distance between the lowest 10 percent and the highest 10 percent for each occupation (BLS, May 2025). In both occupations that spread is wider than the difference between the two medians. Put plainly: the choice of title will usually matter less to your lifetime earnings than how far you move up inside whichever one you pick.

For software developers, the early years move you from the lowest 10 percent figure toward the median, and the milestones are mostly on the job rather than on paper — shipping production code unsupervised, owning a service, then leading a project. Beyond the median, the climb toward the highest 10 percent figure (BLS, May 2025) usually comes from a senior or staff engineering track or a move into engineering management. Changing industry is a third lever you can measure: compare the published median annual wage for software developers in software publishers (BLS, May 2025) against the all-industry median.

For data scientists, the credential milestone is more explicit. BLS reports that some employers require or prefer a master's or doctoral degree (BLS, 2025), and O*NET OnLine reports a distinct share of employers requiring a master's for new hires. A graduate degree there is often less a raise than a door: it decides which jobs you are eligible for, and so which part of the BLS distribution you can reach. Later movement toward the highest 10 percent figure (BLS, May 2025) tends to come from specialisation — production machine learning, experimentation, or leading an analytics function — and from industry, where the median for data scientists in publishing, broadcasting and content providers (BLS, May 2025) sits apart from the all-industry median.

Two notes if you are planning ten years out. BLS wage data excludes equity, so the senior end of both ranges at large technology employers can understate real compensation; get the vesting schedule in writing. And check the 2025–35 projected growth rates BLS publishes for each occupation, because the faster-growing one is likelier to have openings at the level you will have reached.