Data Scientist Salary in Georgia: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A data scientist in Georgia earns a median of $104,340 a year, or about $50.16 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the field lands between $84,120 (25th percentile) and $136,560 (75th percentile), with the top 10% clearing $170,010 and the bottom 10% near $67,750. That median sits below the national figure, but Georgia’s lower cost of living changes what the paycheck actually buys.

How Georgia compares to the national median

The national median for data scientists is $120,230, per BLS (2025). Georgia’s $104,340 runs $15,890 below that, a gap of about 13%. That sounds steep until you factor in housing and everyday costs, which run well under the national average across most of the state. A six-figure salary in metro Atlanta stretches further than the same number in San Francisco, Seattle, or New York City.

It’s also worth knowing where Georgia’s number comes from. The state mean is higher than the median, at $115,940, which tells you the top end pulls the average up. A handful of senior and lead roles at large Atlanta employers sit near $170,010, while the broad middle of the field clusters closer to the $104,340 median. When a recruiter quotes you the “average,” ask whether they mean mean or median, because the difference here is more than $11,000.

The gap between Georgia and the national median is best read alongside the spread. Georgia’s 90th percentile of $170,010 is a genuine top-tier number anywhere in the country, and its 10th percentile of $67,750 is a solid entry wage for the state. So the “below national” headline mostly reflects the middle of the distribution, not a hard ceiling. A senior data scientist in Atlanta can earn the same $170,010 that a senior would earn in a higher-cost national market, while paying Georgia housing prices. The lower median is a story about how many mid-level roles sit in the $90,000s and low $100,000s, not about the ceiling for strong individual contributors.

For a quick sanity check on any offer: if a Georgia employer quotes you under $84,120, you’re below the 25th percentile and have room to negotiate or look elsewhere. If they’re offering above $136,560, you’re in the top quarter of the state’s pay scale, which for most candidates means a senior title or a hard-to-fill specialty is on the table.

Data scientist pay in Georgia by experience

Experience is the single biggest lever on this number. BLS reports pay by percentile rather than by job title, but the percentile ladder maps cleanly onto a career arc: the 10th percentile is roughly where new graduates and career-changers start, the median is mid-career, and the 90th percentile is where staff, lead, and principal data scientists land. Here is the full spread for Georgia.

The jump from entry to median is about $36,590, and most people cover that ground in three to five years as they move from cleaning data and building dashboards to owning models and shipping them to production. The next leap, from median to the 75th percentile, is worth another $32,220 and usually comes with a title change to senior data scientist plus ownership of a business-critical model or a team. Crossing into the 90th percentile, at $170,010, almost always means either a staff or principal individual-contributor track or a lead role at a large employer, and frequently a machine-learning specialty that’s hard to hire for.

One pattern holds across the state: the gap between the 25th and 75th percentiles, $84,120 to $136,560, is where the vast majority of working data scientists sit. If you’re inside that band, your fastest raises come from changing employers or moving up a level, not from annual cost-of-living bumps.

It helps to translate the percentiles into the work itself. At the 10th percentile, $67,750, you’re typically a new analyst or a recent bootcamp or master’s graduate doing SQL pulls, building dashboards, and supporting other people’s models. By the 25th percentile, $84,120, you usually own a model or two end to end and have a year or three of production experience. The median, $104,340, is the classic mid-career data scientist: you scope problems, choose methods, and ship results that a business unit relies on. At the 75th percentile, $136,560, you’re a senior who mentors others and owns systems, and at the 90th, $170,010, you’re a staff or principal contributor or a manager whose decisions shape the data roadmap.

The hourly column matters for anyone weighing contract or part-time work. The median $50.16 an hour becomes the floor for negotiating a contract rate, and contractors typically add a premium on top to cover the benefits and job security a salaried role includes. A senior at $81.74 an hour salaried would reasonably quote well above that as an independent. The takeaway: know which percentile your skills match before you name a number, because the spread from $32.57 to $81.74 an hour is wide enough that anchoring to the wrong end costs real money.

Data scientist salary by Georgia metro

Where you work inside Georgia matters more than people expect. The state’s 9,260 data science jobs are heavily concentrated in metro Atlanta, which also pays the most. Here are the five largest metro markets by BLS (2025) median.

Atlanta is the whole story here. At $108,940, the metro median sits $4,600 above the statewide figure and accounts for roughly 74% of every data science job in Georgia. That’s where the Fortune 500 headquarters, the fintech cluster, the large health systems, and the logistics giants are, and it’s where senior pay actually reaches the $170,010 top end. If you want the highest ceiling without leaving the state, Atlanta is the answer.

The smaller metros tell a more nuanced story. Savannah’s $97,200 and Augusta’s $92,800 trail Atlanta but carry far lower housing costs, so the real spending power can be competitive for the right role. Columbus, at $78,620, is the lowest of the five and reflects a thinner private-sector data market. The catch in every metro outside Atlanta is volume: with only 110 to 220 jobs each, openings are sporadic, and a remote Atlanta or out-of-state role may pay better than what’s locally available.

The pay spread between metros is wider than most people assume. Atlanta’s $108,940 median is $30,320 above Columbus’s $78,620, the largest in-state gap among these five markets. For the same job title, that’s a 39% difference driven almost entirely by which employers operate in each metro. Augusta is an interesting case: it carries 220 jobs, more than Savannah, partly on the back of cybersecurity and defense-adjacent work tied to the region, and its $92,800 median reflects that specialized demand. Savannah’s $97,200 leans on logistics and the port economy.

If you’re location-flexible, the math usually favors anchoring your pay to Atlanta while living somewhere cheaper, when remote terms allow it. A role that pays on the Atlanta band but lets you live near Savannah or Augusta combines the metro’s $108,940-level pay with lower housing, which is the best of both. Just confirm the offer is tied to the Atlanta market rate and not adjusted down for your home location, because some employers localize pay and that can erase the advantage.

Take-home pay after taxes in Georgia

Gross salary is the headline; take-home is what hits your account. Georgia levies a flat individual income tax of 5.49% for 2026, on top of federal income tax and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). The table below runs all four percentile points through federal, FICA, and Georgia state tax to show net annual and net monthly pay. Figures assume a single filer taking the standard deduction with no other adjustments, so treat them as a clean baseline rather than a custom estimate.

At the median, a Georgia data scientist keeps $76,812 of a $104,340 salary, an effective all-in tax rate of 26.4%. That works out to $6,401 a month, or $2,954 on a biweekly cycle. The effective rate climbs with income, from 21.7% at entry to 30.3% at the senior level, because federal brackets are progressive even though Georgia’s rate is flat. FICA alone takes $7,982 at the median, the 7.65% combined Social Security and Medicare bite that hits every paycheck before income tax even starts.

Notice how the components shift as you move up the ladder. At entry, state tax is $3,005 and federal is $6,519, so the two are close. By the senior level, federal tax has ballooned to $30,049 while Georgia’s flat rate keeps state tax at a comparatively modest $8,517. That’s the practical effect of a flat state tax against progressive federal brackets: the higher you climb, the more of your marginal tax bill is federal and the smaller a share Georgia takes. A senior at $170,010 nets $118,438, or $9,870 a month, which is more than double the entry-level net of $4,420 a month even though the gross is roughly 2.5 times larger.

Here’s the cross-state number that matters most if you’re weighing an offer. Take the same $104,340 salary to Texas, which has no state income tax, and the net rises to $81,789. That’s $4,977 more in take-home for the identical gross, the exact amount Georgia collects in state income tax at the median. Over five years that gap is roughly $24,885 before any raises. It’s a real difference, but it’s only half the equation: Texas metros like Austin and Dallas carry higher housing costs than most of Georgia, so the no-tax advantage can be eaten by rent and home prices.

That’s the framing to hold onto: net pay minus local housing is the number that actually matters. A $76,812 take-home in Augusta or Savannah, where a decent two-bedroom runs far below the national average, leaves more discretionary cash than a bigger paper salary in a coastal tech hub. Run your own offer through the Georgia paycheck calculator to see your exact net, then subtract your real rent or mortgage before you compare cities. If you want help modeling deductions, retirement contributions, or a side income, TurboTax can estimate your full liability before you file.

ThePayGuide may earn a commission from links on this page at no cost to you. See our editorial policy.

How to earn more as a data scientist in Georgia

The percentile ladder above isn’t fixed. Moving from the median to the 75th percentile is worth $32,220, and the people who get there usually do a few specific things. Here’s what actually moves the number in this state.

• Get into metro Atlanta, in person or remote. Atlanta’s $108,940 median and its concentration of large employers mean the senior roles, and the budgets that pay $136,560 and up, live there. Even a remote role tied to an Atlanta team usually pays on the metro band, not the rural one.
• Specialize in machine learning and MLOps. The $170,010 top decile is dominated by people who ship models to production, not just analyze data. Owning the deployment pipeline, model monitoring, and inference at scale is the clearest path from the median to the top quartile.
• Build a credential that maps to production work. Cloud and ML certifications carry weight with Atlanta’s enterprise and fintech employers. Programs on Coursera, including the AWS, Google Cloud, and applied machine-learning specializations, are a low-cost way to signal the production skills that separate the 75th percentile from the median.
• Move up a title, then change employers. The fastest raises inside the $84,120 to $136,560 band come from a level change (analyst to data scientist, data scientist to senior) followed by a switch to a company that pays at the top of its range. Internal raises rarely match what a new employer will offer a proven senior.
• Target the high-paying Atlanta verticals. Fintech, large health systems, and logistics headquarters run data-heavy operations and compete hardest for talent. These are where the $136,560-plus offers concentrate.
• Add a scarce domain. Pairing data science with a regulated or technical domain, fraud and risk for fintech, clinical data for health systems, supply-chain optimization for logistics, makes you harder to replace and easier to pay at the top of the band.

Job outlook for data scientists in Georgia

Georgia employs about 9,260 data scientists, per BLS (2025), and the role remains one of the faster-growing technical occupations nationally. Demand is concentrated where the jobs already are: Atlanta’s 6,820 positions dwarf every other metro in the state and keep growing as fintech, health, and logistics employers expand their data teams. The smaller metros add openings more slowly, so candidates outside Atlanta often widen their search to remote roles. To track live openings and pay ranges across the state, a board like ZipRecruiter lets you filter by metro and salary so you can see what employers are actually paying right now.

Related and higher-paying roles in Georgia

Data science isn’t the highest-paying technical track in Georgia. Two adjacent roles are worth a direct comparison, using BLS (2025) state medians.

A software developer in Georgia earns a median of $131,010, which is $26,670 more than a data scientist here. If you’re strong on the engineering side, the developer track pays a meaningful premium in this state. A computer systems analyst earns $106,240, just $1,900 more than a data scientist, so the two roles are effectively neck and neck on pay, and the choice comes down to the work itself rather than the paycheck.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025 (occupation code 15-2051); federal, FICA, and Georgia state tax estimates for tax year 2026. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.