A physicist finishing a PhD in quantum information can take the same skills to a university, a national laboratory, a venture-backed startup, or the quantum division of a large technology company, and each of them will price those skills on a different system. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows how widely pay varies within a single occupation. Computer and information research scientists earned a median of US$140,910 in May 2024, and US$237,990 in software publishing (BLS). Physicists earned a median of US$166,290 (BLS). No government survey separates quantum roles from those occupations, so quantum salaries have no official benchmark. Every pay negotiation in this field starts without one.
Scarcity is real but uneven. McKinsey estimated in 2022 that there was one qualified candidate for every three quantum job openings (McKinsey). Its 2023 Quantum Technology Monitor reported improvement as universities added quantum master’s programs. New graduates of those programs could have filled 450 of 717 open roles in 2022, against 290 of 851 in 2021 (McKinsey). Pay follows the scarcity of specific profiles. An engineer who has run a dilution refrigerator in production, or a cryptographer who has shipped ML-KEM (formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber) in a real product, is harder to replace than a graduate with coursework in quantum algorithms. Offers reflect the difference.
Four pay systems for the same skills
Venture-backed startups pay a base salary plus stock options. The options are worth what the company eventually becomes worth, which may be nothing. The most common vesting terms are a four-year schedule with a one-year cliff, under which a quarter of the grant vests on the first anniversary and the remaining three-quarters vest monthly or quarterly after that (Carta). The number of options means little on its own. Ask for the price per share in the most recent funding round, the total shares outstanding on a fully diluted basis, and the strike price. With those three figures you can work out what percentage of the company you are being offered.
Large technology companies slot quantum roles into the same leveling system as every other engineering role. Each level has a pay band for base salary, an annual bonus target, and restricted stock units (RSUs) that vest over several years. Within a level there is limited room on base salary. The level is the main thing to negotiate. A higher level raises base salary, bonus target, and stock grant together.
Government agencies in the US pay most scientists and engineers on the General Schedule, where grade and step decide the salary. A new hire starts at step 1 of the grade by default, but an agency may set pay as high as step 10 for a candidate with superior qualifications or to meet a special agency need, provided it approves the decision before the employee starts (OPM). A candidate who wants a higher step therefore has to make the case while the offer is being negotiated, before the first day of work.
National laboratories and universities follow their own scales. The US Department of Energy laboratories are run by contractors, so their staff are not on the General Schedule, and each lab publishes or explains its own salary structure. Universities tie pay to rank and add intellectual-property rights that industry rarely offers. At MIT, for example, inventors receive one-third of the net revenue when the institute licenses their work (MIT TLO).
How employers set the number
Because quantum-specific salary data is thin, most employers benchmark against the nearest established occupation. A quantum software engineer is compared with machine-learning and high-performance computing (HPC) engineers, a control-electronics engineer with radio-frequency (RF) and microwave engineers, a fabrication engineer with semiconductor process engineers, and a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) specialist with applied cryptographers and security architects. Larger employers buy commercial compensation surveys for those comparator roles and adjust from there. Startups more often benchmark against the offers their candidates are holding.
The comparison works until a role combines two scarce skills. A cryogenic engineer with a security clearance, or an algorithm researcher who can also write production code, fits no comparator well. In searches for those profiles, offers differ most from the comparator’s pay band. Employers writing a role like this should state the combination plainly in the listing. Our guide to writing a quantum job description covers how.
Where real salary numbers come from now
The most reliable salary data in this field is now the range that employers are legally required to publish.
In the US, a growing list of states requires a pay range in the job posting itself, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington, with Virginia and Maine joining in 2026 (GovDocs). Illinois’s law, in force since January 1, 2025, covers employers with 15 or more employees and requires a general description of benefits alongside the range (Littler). Many quantum employers hire in at least one of those states, and their postings now include ranges even for some roles based elsewhere.
In the European Union, the Pay Transparency Directive gives every job applicant the right to receive the starting pay or pay range, for example in the job advertisement or before the interview, and it bars employers from asking about a candidate’s pay history (EUR-Lex). Member states had until June 7, 2026, to write it into national law. Most missed that deadline. Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovakia were among the few that finalized their laws on or shortly after it (Ogletree). Candidates in the remaining countries can still ask for the range before an interview.
For a sanity check by city, the BLS publishes occupational wages by metropolitan area for the comparator occupations employers use to benchmark quantum roles. Outside the US, compare offers in local currency and after tax. A smaller gross number in a country with lower income tax or employer-paid housing can be the larger offer.
You can browse current quantum roles on Quantum Careers and compare the ranges employers publish for similar titles. Our Quantum Talent Map covers where those employers are concentrated, and our guide to visas, relocation, and security clearances covers what a move involves.
Research time, publication rights, and IP
Pay is only part of what a quantum scientist negotiates. Three non-cash terms matter more here than in most technology jobs.
Publication rights. Labs and universities expect you to publish. Companies vary. Some encourage papers and conference talks after a patent filing, others treat the whole research program as confidential. Ask before signing who approves a paper and how long that review takes.
Invention assignment. Almost every employer will ask you to assign inventions made on the job. Check what the agreement covers outside working hours. In California, the law voids any clause that claims an invention you developed entirely on your own time without the employer’s equipment, facilities, or trade secrets, unless it relates to the employer’s business or results from your work there (California Labor Code §2870). Other jurisdictions offer less protection. Attach a list of your prior inventions to the agreement before you sign it.
Research and learning budgets. Most employers approve conference travel, training, and time for self-directed projects more easily than a higher base salary. Those costs come from a different budget. Ask for them as specific commitments, such as two conferences a year or one week a quarter on exploratory work.
Three negotiation scenarios
The scenarios below are illustrative. They show what is usually negotiable at each type of employer. Each employer decides for itself which requests to accept.
A new PhD choosing between a startup and a national lab
A graduating PhD has two offers: a 15-person startup building quantum control software, and a staff scientist post at a national laboratory. The startup offers less cash and an option grant. The lab offers a higher base salary inside a fixed band and little else that is negotiable on the surface.
At the startup, negotiate the equity, not just the salary. Ask for the percentage of the company the grant represents, the strike price, and how much runway the last funding round bought. A signing bonus is often easier for a startup to fund than a permanent salary increase, and it can cover the cost of a move. Settle publication rights in writing if your field rewards papers, and ask who on the team will act as your technical mentor.
At the lab, ask where in the band you have been placed and what would justify a higher starting point. Your publication record, any fellowship, and a competing offer are the usual arguments. Then negotiate the terms the lab controls more easily: relocation support, a conference travel commitment, and whether the post converts to a permanent position.
Use each offer to inform the other, honestly. “The startup is offering a higher signing bonus” is a fair thing to tell the lab. An invented competing offer is not, and in a field this small it is likely to be discovered.
A mid-career HPC engineer moving into a cloud provider’s quantum team
An engineer with a decade in high-performance computing receives an offer from a large cloud provider’s quantum computing service. The quantum knowledge is new. The distributed-systems experience is exactly what the team needs to run quantum workloads alongside classical ones.
The risk in this move is being leveled as a beginner. Argue the level from the work the team needs done in its first year, such as scheduling hybrid classical and quantum jobs or scaling a simulator, and not from years spent in quantum. If you will forfeit unvested stock by leaving your current employer, say so and ask for a sign-on bonus or an additional stock grant to cover it.
Then negotiate the ramp-up. Ask for a named mentor on the quantum side, time in the first quarter to complete structured training, and support to attend a conference such as IEEE Quantum Week. These requests cost the employer little and make the first year more productive for both sides.
A cryptographer joining a PQC consulting practice
A cryptographer from a government agency or a bank receives an offer from a consulting practice that helps enterprises migrate to ML-KEM, ML-DSA (formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium), and the other post-quantum standards from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Consulting firms bill your time to clients, so the package usually combines a base salary with a bonus tied to utilization or business development.
Ask exactly how the bonus is calculated and what share of your time is expected to be billable. If you are expected to bring in clients, ask whether originating work earns a defined share. Negotiate travel limits up front if you need them, and get them in writing. Then secure time for the work that keeps a cryptographer current: standards participation, conference attendance at venues such as NIST’s PQC events and the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) meetings, and the right to publish non-client research under your own name. A firm that sells PQC expertise gains from that visibility too, which gives the firm a reason to agree.
Ask for the range first
For candidates, the most useful move in any quantum negotiation is to ask for the employer’s range before naming a number. Employers are obliged to provide it in the US states with pay-transparency laws and in the EU countries that have written the directive into national law. Elsewhere, asking signals that you know how the market works.
For employers, a realistic range in the listing filters out candidates who would not accept the offer, and many jurisdictions now require one. Employers hiring at director level and above can talk to our executive search team about how a package compares with the candidates a search is likely to reach.
First published November 2, 2025. Revised November 10, 2026: salary figures that could not be traced to a source were removed, and the sections on pay-transparency law were rewritten to reflect rules now in force.