---
title: "Autonomous Vehicle Research Scientist"
description: "Researches the perception, prediction and planning methods that let self-driving cars and trucks drive safely without a human."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/autonomous-vehicle-research-scientist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Autonomous Vehicle Research Scientist

**Category:** Computer and Mathematical · **SOC code:** 15-1221 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 15-1221.00

Researches the perception, prediction and planning methods that let self-driving cars and trucks drive safely without a human.

Also advertised as: Self-Driving Research Scientist; Autonomous Driving Research Scientist; Perception Research Scientist; Research Scientist, Autonomy; Behavior Prediction Research Scientist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $140,300 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $67.45/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $82,200 to $230,630, with the middle half between $103,570 and $188,700
- **Total US employment:** 37,200
- **Typical entry education:** Master's
- **Preparation required:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +21.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 19/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 37,200 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $82,200 |
| 25th | $103,570 |
| 50th (median) | $140,300 |
| 75th | $188,700 |
| 90th | $230,630 |
| Mean (average) | $153,930 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OR | $206,220 | $199,514 | 730 |
| WA | $202,400 | $189,136 | 2,050 |
| NY | $181,990 | $168,633 | 1,950 |
| MA | $170,510 | $161,228 | 1,760 |
| NM | $165,690 | $179,684 | 490 |
| CA | $159,100 | $143,696 | 8,440 |
| VA | $157,390 | $155,671 | 3,590 |
| MD | $145,310 | $138,445 | 2,870 |
| DC | $144,190 | $131,200 | 330 |
| NJ | $140,840 | $129,443 | 1,580 |
| IL | $136,540 | $136,597 | 630 |
| NH | $136,160 | $130,716 | 90 |
| MN | $135,850 | $137,750 | 30 |
| OH | $135,510 | $146,065 | 280 |
| HI | $134,350 | $122,191 | 70 |

20 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 35 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/autonomous-vehicle-research-scientist/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/autonomous-vehicle-research-scientist.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 38,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 47,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 8,400 jobs, or +21.8%. Much faster than average: 21.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Master's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Considerable preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 36.2% |
| Doctoral Degree | 28.4% |
| Master's Degree | 19.9% |
| Some College Courses | 8.4% |
| Post-Doctoral Training | 4.5% |
| First Professional Degree | 2.6% |

## What the work involves

- Develop perception models that detect objects from camera and lidar data
- Build models that predict the behavior of other road users
- Design planning methods that choose safe driving actions
- Create simulation scenarios to test rare and dangerous events
- Analyze driving data to find and fix failure cases
- Publish research at computer vision and machine learning conferences
- Work with engineers to deploy models on test vehicles

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Programming — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Evaluation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Technology Design — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Investigative (I), Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| I — Investigative | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 5.10 |
| R — Realistic | 4.54 |
| A — Artistic | 2.95 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.49 |
| S — Social | 2.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| INTJ | 87.6 |
| ISTJ | 82.3 |
| ISTP | 81.6 |
| INTP | 73.8 |
| ESTJ | 56.3 |

Best-fitting types: INTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Computer and Information Research Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-and-information-research-scientist) — median $140,300
- [Data Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/data-scientist) — median $120,230
- [Mathematician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mathematician) — median $126,710
- [Software Developer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/software-developer) — median $135,980
- [Computer Programmer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-programmer) — median $100,390
- [Operations Research Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/operations-research-analyst) — median $88,940
- [Computer Systems Engineers/Architect](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-engineers-architect) — median $116,580
- [Computer Systems Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-systems-analyst) — median $105,850
- [Bioinformatics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-technician) — median $81,490
- [Bioinformatics Scientist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bioinformatics-scientist) — median $98,920

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/autonomous-vehicle-research-scientist