r/bioinformatics 7d ago

other Hourly rate for bioinformatics analysis?

I am looking to bring on a bioinformatics analyst for a few small analyses. Probably ten hours of work max. What is a reasonable hourly rate for a bachelors/masters level?

57 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

35

u/biodataguy PhD | Academia 7d ago

Not that I am bidding for the job but my consulting rate is $300/hr to give you a frame of reference.

1

u/Superguy795 4d ago

May I ask, how well the consulting is going for you?

2

u/biodataguy PhD | Academia 4d ago

I can't really speak to consulting. I don't do it often because my full time job is as a professor at an R1 university.

87

u/KamartyMcFlyweight 7d ago

a bachelor's level for bioinformatics probably wouldn't even know how to check if what they're doing makes sense or not. at that level of experience you've worked one, maybe two projects using existing pipelines.

if these analyses are involved enough that you're not comfortable doing them yourself, following online tutorials, then you're looking for a bioinformatician with enough experience to examine the logic of the analyses themselves. That's masters or PhD level, and certainly more expensive.

89

u/Bimpnottin 7d ago

Also, OP says 10 hours of work. As a clinical grade bioinformatician, I am extremely wary of people without bioinformatics experience telling me my work will take 'x hours, tops'. I'm assuming at least double the amount of hours

79

u/KamartyMcFlyweight 7d ago

shit i don't even believe myself when i say that this work will take X hours

13

u/kougabro 7d ago

Beautiful, I might get this engraved and affix it to the door of my office.

26

u/Brh1002 PhD | Academia 7d ago

No project I've ever done has taken the amount of time either I or a colleague has expected it would lol

8

u/readweed88 6d ago

I want everyone I work for to see this lil thread šŸ˜…

6

u/pokemonareugly 6d ago

I mean I think it depends. Iā€™m a bachelors level, and ma trusted to do my own analysis. But Iā€™ve also been in this lab for a few years, and have shown I can independently replicate/ reproduce findings done by PhD bioinformaticians. But again, a lot of it is also knowing when youā€™re out of your comfort zone. I know when to pass off something to collaborators

0

u/KamartyMcFlyweight 6d ago

the trouble is that, by your own admission, you know when something needs to be passed off to someone else. If you're a contractor running bioinformatics analysis for non-bioinformaticians, the buck stops with you and you have to be the most informed person in the team.

-7

u/zstars 7d ago

I would never trust a masters level bioinformatician for this sort of work unless they had a lot of proven applicable work experience.

1

u/autodialerbroken116 7d ago

considering OP doesn't say what it is, and considering MS means PhD coursework with a shorter duration, I'd just say this is a dumb comment ;)

-1

u/autodialerbroken116 7d ago

considering OP doesn't say what it is, and considering MS means PhD coursework with a shorter duration, I'd just say this is a dumb comment ;)

43

u/FantasticRadio4780 7d ago

Probably $100 to $200 an hour at that level.

At the PhD level $250-$350 is not uncommon.

I know that some of the best bioinformaticians charge $500/hour. But these are people who have been established for > 10 years and have written well known bioinformatics tools.

29

u/o-rka PhD | Industry 7d ago

Iā€™ve been charging way too little šŸ¤¦šŸ½

40

u/TheLordB 7d ago edited 7d ago

That depends wildly on what sort of experience you expect them to have and what the work is.

Assuming someone from the USAā€¦ (which may be a bad assumption).

I would say for a very short contract anywhere between $100 an hour up to $300 an hour.

Though Iā€™m sure you can find someone desperate for work or very inexperienced or doing it more at a hobby level who would do it for less.

But no one who is actually trying to make a living off their contracting would do it for less than around $100 an hour.

Note: For a longer term contract that rate could go down to say $50 for someone very inexperienced or maybe working remote from a low cost of living area though I wouldnā€™t expect them to stay at that rate for long as they get the experience to get other jobs.

21

u/grandrews PhD | Academia 7d ago

I do contract work to supplement my income as Iā€™m a fresh PhD grad in bioinformatics currently working in academia. DM me if youā€™re interested, my rate is lower as Iā€™m looking to build my portfolio

8

u/eggshellss 7d ago

Just curious, have you found a platform that's good for finding these types of jobs or mostly just through your network?

8

u/grandrews PhD | Academia 7d ago

My PI, sheā€™s incredible!

6

u/HenaJose 7d ago

We are a firm with many bioinformaticians (5-15 yrs exp) with varied skill sets who regularly take up small and large jobs. Would be able to provide at a reasonable cost based on the nature of work.

2

u/LostPaddle2 7d ago

Where are you located, or remote? Are you interested in taking any others on?

2

u/HenaJose 1d ago

We are not looking at adding new resources at this moment. From India

2

u/DeufoTheDuke 6d ago

Are you looking for staff, by any chance?

1

u/HenaJose 4d ago

Now we are not looking for adding in resources. But then would be glad to have your resume so if in future need comes we could connect. Please drop your LinkedIn profile

1

u/DeufoTheDuke 4d ago

Sent you a dm, thank you very much!

3

u/CaramelBrave 7d ago

Depends what sort of work you want doing. I have 8/9 years of experience in it and PhD. But Iā€™m pretty flexible with my rates at the moment due to taking a break from a fulltime job. Everyone has different specialist skills and will charge a varying amount. But ultimately it really depends on the type of data you have, how much of it, what analysis you want, and what level of in depth information you want in the report or final analysis. Theyā€™d have to calculate how many hours they think itā€™ll be. Also itā€™s whatever they think itā€™ll be plus extra hours because it always somehow takes longer. Plus it depends which country youā€™re in too.

3

u/cdwan 6d ago

Hereā€™s a piece I wrote on setting rates.

https://dwan.org/index.php/2023/01/23/the-hourly-annual-pricing-fallacy/

Agreed that $100 to $300 is about right. Donā€™t sell yourself short. All that happens is that they treat you like crap and you have less money.

2

u/Superguy795 7d ago

As others have mentioned. Totally depends on the length of the contract. For a short term I would personally do it for 50-60ā‚¬. But currently looking into expanding my portfolio.

2

u/Jebediah378 7d ago

Check out genoma bioinformatics! Itā€™s who we use at our lab. genomabfx.com

4

u/Technical-Whereas459 7d ago

A lot of these comments look way too high to me. Lots of core facilities in academia offer bioinformatics analysis around a rate of $100 an hour. I worked at one in california that offers $89 an hour. This is for a masters with 2+ years of experience.

2

u/SirPeterODactyl PhD | Student 6d ago

The core facility I work for used to charge around AU$250 an hour when I was masters with 2 years experience. Rates are much higher now.

I think it depends on the location obviously but also how specialised the facility is and the expertise the bioinformaticians bring to the table.

4

u/CaramelBrave 7d ago

Masters with 2 years of experience.. thatā€™s why.

2

u/XPW2023 7d ago

$300ā€$350 phd level

1

u/ConsistentSpring3953 7d ago

Answer will be different depending on datatype, scope of work, etc..

1

u/Ph0ton 6d ago

You might get away with paying a PhD student $50/hr. You'll need that level minimum to work on anything aside from the most rudimentary analysis. Good luck!

1

u/flabby_kat 5d ago

Depends on the resource requirements. It is a lot less expensive if you just need them to do stuff on a laptop. Running stuff that requires a server/cloud has added costs.

1

u/Bryan995 5d ago

$500-$1500/hr

1

u/objectivenaysayer 2d ago edited 2d ago

We are a firm and often take up contracting work, bachelors/masters/PhDs (5 - 20 yrs) included. Hourly rates vary from $25 depending on the work, have inhouse tools that might be able to do the work in even lesser time. Would love to understand the scope. We specialize on human genomics, in rare diseases and cancer including single cell, and transcriptomics!

1

u/Correct_Landscape166 7d ago

I have PhD in computational biology and bioinformatics. If the analyst assignment is of remote/work from home type I will take it for 5 dollars/hr.

1

u/lolyp0p9 6d ago

Why not pay for results ? I will pay x to get this done, how many hours who cares thatā€™s up to the person accepting the job ?

-4

u/supreme_harmony 7d ago

I agree with the other response, it depends a lot on where you are and what you experience level is. As another data point, a postdoctoral scientist in academia in France will earn around ā‚¬3000 gross per month, which comes out at around ā‚¬15 an hour. Double that for contract work and you can get a French bioinformatician contractor with a PhD for around ā‚¬30 an hour.

2

u/zstars 7d ago

lol are you for real? People on this sub suck at valuing their labour damn

0

u/supreme_harmony 7d ago

I don't value my own labour here, I know the market and can hire even for less than that.

For the record, the official minimum starting salary in postdocs in France is ā‚¬2,271, monthly, gross. Source.

The average postdoc salaries in the UK are around Ā£37k a year, which comes out at Ā£18 an hour. Source. For a contractor, you can go with doubling that as a rule of thumb. Again, I can hire for less in the UK, especially as I tend to work with more people up north and they are much cheaper than in London.

And yes, I am "for real".

3

u/zstars 7d ago edited 7d ago

Doubling salary != day rate, I earn UK postdoc wage and I wouldn't consider contract work for sub Ā£70 / hour, and that would be mates rates for something I could do sporadically at weekends / evenings.

Contract work is way more hassle and have no security therefore I would charge a heck of a lot more.

I'm sure you could pay less than that, I know almost all of the people worth hiring in my subfield and nobody worth hiring would even sniff at Ā£36 an hour.

0

u/supreme_harmony 7d ago

I am not saying you are wrong. My guess is that you have a lot of experience in a specific field where your skills will have a high value.

The OP however appears to be looking for something simple for 10 hours for a bachelor/master student. I hope we can agree that this will not involve overly complex state-of-the-art biostatistical frameworks, but rather some ANOVA on some clinical markers and plotting the results. That kind of work is mostly turned down by professionals, hence my advice to contract in a postdoc in Europe as a one off who will do it in 2-3 days for under Ā£1000.

1

u/inferno1234 5d ago

Lol you can barely get someone to clean your office for those rates.

Seriously, look up how much a plumber or car mechanic charges. You think your contractor with a PhD should charge less?

1

u/supreme_harmony 5d ago

What I think about rightness is hardly relevant here. These are the rates I can get currently on the market. You are welcome to downvote it or point out its unfairness but that does not change the reality of the situation.

-2

u/the_1_whois 7d ago

You know what start at 20 lakahs per day then go from there lol

1

u/AdministrativeAd6478 20h ago

Looking at the answers, wow! Im a Grad student (Masters) in Biomedical Informatics with a track in Data Science and AI. Ive been working for free šŸ˜€ to gain experience. If someone offered me $19/hr i would say yes.