Research Associate H-1B wages

Filings decided July 2025 to June 2026. Most are classified as Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists (SOC 19-1042).

Employers filed 1,359 wage applications for Research Associate jobs from July 2025 to June 2026, across 255 employers. The median offered wage was $72,761, 10.7% above the government's prevailing wage for the job. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania filed the most (95, median $75,000).

Filings: 1,359
Positions covered: 1,367
Employers: 255
Median offered: $72,761
Median prevailing wage: $63,390
Filings since FY2020: 8,669
Median offer change since FY2020: +23%

Research Associate, all employers1,359 filings, July 2025 to June 2026

$72,761Median wage employers told the government they would pay

$65,000 to $82,526Where the middle half of the filings fall

$63,390Prevailing wage: the legal minimum for these jobs

Offered wage since 2020

The median wage offered for Research Associate jobs rose 23%, from $60,000 in fiscal 2020 to $73,902 in fiscal 2026 so far. In fiscal 2026 it was 10.7% above the prevailing wage. Filings peaked in fiscal 2025, with 1,379 filings.

Middle half of offered wagesMedian offered wageMedian prevailing wageFilings per year

Fiscal years run October to September. Fiscal 2026 is still running: these figures cover October 2025 to June 2026.

Research Associate by fiscal year

Fiscal year	Filings	Median offered	vs year before	Median prevailing	vs prevailing
2026 (Oct to Jun)	984	$73,902	+4.2%	$63,627	+10.7%
2025	1,379	$70,917	+4.3%	$61,235	+11.5%
2024	1,281	$68,000	+4.6%	$57,949	+11.9%
2023	1,259	$65,000	+3.0%	$56,430	+12.3%
2022	1,350	$63,135	+2.8%	$55,000	+11.9%
2021	1,237	$61,397	+2.3%	$54,174	+10.2%
2020	1,179	$60,000	n/a	$52,686	+11.1%

Employers that file for this title

Middle half of offered wagesMedian offered wageMedian prevailing wage

Employer	Filings	Median offered	vs prevailing
Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania	95	$75,000	+19.3%
Johns Hopkins University	88	$72,588	+7.1%
Northwestern University	75	$70,008	+7.8%
The University of Virginia	67	$64,050	+15.1%
Harvard University	66	$82,400	+18.1%
Mayo Clinic	46	$89,450	+9.3%
The University of Texas at Austin	45	$81,000	+16.8%
Weill Cornell Medical College	36	$80,000	+6.5%
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	31	$80,000	+8.5%
University of Maryland Baltimore	29	$78,780	+19.7%
Cornell University	26	$76,500	+10.1%
Michigan State University	23	$63,000	+5.7%
UT Southwestern Medical Center	23	$56,874	+10.5%
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University	23	$73,840	+2.9%
Oregon State University	22	$66,670	+36.5%
The University of Southern California	22	$70,720	at the minimum
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	21	$68,192	+4.9%
The University of Texas at Dallas	16	$58,440	+12.6%
Cornerstone Research, Inc.	14	$160,000	+41.4%
The Rockefeller University	14	$81,113	+10.9%
NYU Grossman School of Medicine	14	$65,749	+3.6%
Fermi Forward Discovery Group, LLC	14	$76,627	+19.6%
Indiana University	12	$69,679	+20.8%
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	12	$85,588	at the minimum
Wayne State University	11	$58,614	+0.1%

Showing the 25 employers with the most filings of 255. Employers with fewer than 5 filings in total are counted but not named.

Where Research Associate jobs are filed

Worksite	Filings	Median offered	vs prevailing
New York, NY	146	$80,000	+9.5%
Baltimore, MD	116	$74,088	+12.0%
Philadelphia, PA	105	$75,000	+17.4%
Charlottesville, VA	67	$64,050	+15.1%
Chicago, IL	56	$70,245	+8.2%
Austin, TX	42	$88,500	+21.1%
Boston, MA	36	$86,829	+30.3%
Cambridge, MA	36	$75,130	+13.3%
Los Angeles, CA	34	$70,886	at the minimum
Evanston, IL	31	$70,054	+4.2%
Rochester, MN	31	$91,204	+13.8%
Ithaca, NY	26	$76,000	+9.7%
Dallas, TX	23	$56,874	+10.5%
East Lansing, MI	23	$63,000	+5.7%
Batavia, IL	22	$67,838	+15.9%
Chapel Hill, NC	21	$68,192	+4.9%
Blacksburg, VA	19	$75,000	+2.9%
Corvallis, OR	19	$66,672	+36.5%
Pittsburgh, PA	17	$61,166	+33.9%
Richardson, TX	16	$58,440	+12.6%
Houston, TX	15	$75,481	+24.2%
Aurora, CO	13	$63,627	at the minimum
San Francisco, CA	13	$145,860	+40.4%
Bloomington, IN	12	$69,679	+20.8%
Salt Lake City, UT	12	$80,549	+14.4%

Seniority of the jobs filed

Level I, entry55%

Level II, qualified30%

Level III, experienced12%

Level IV, fully competent4%

The government assigns each job one of four wage levels. A higher level means a higher legal minimum.

What these numbers are

They are wages employers attested to on Labor Condition Applications (Form ETA-9035), not paychecks. Bonuses and stock are not included.
A filing is not a visa or a hire. One filing can cover several positions, and some are later withdrawn. Wage figures use certified filings only.
The prevailing wage is the minimum the employer must pay for that job in that area, set from government wage surveys.
58 filings are for part-time work. Hourly wages are shown as full-time equivalents (2,080 hours a year).

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OFLC disclosure data. How we clean and count it.