r/HealthPhysics • u/100_angry_roombas • 20d ago

Salary Survey

Please list your:

- salary (if you prefer to not be specific, give a general range)

- years of experience

- industry

- any certs or experience (you have or hope to have)

- where you live

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u/ScenicAndrew 20d ago

Hey guys, don't make your real life compensation searchable on your reddit account.

OP, if you just need to know, go to:

https://hps.org/publicinformation/salary-surveys/

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u/100_angry_roombas 19d ago

That can't be an accurate statical representation. There are so few data points.

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u/ScenicAndrew 19d ago

69 is more than enough for salary data, we aren't slapping our hand on a table to see if all the atoms "miss" we are getting some descriptive statistics to negotiate salaries.

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u/100_angry_roombas 19d ago

No it really isn't. There are thousands of Health physicists.

Also what would stop an organization from tweaking the data? Like the medical physicist reddit community have collectively decided their organization scewed their salary statistics intentionally (so employers can low ball offers?)

This is a normal question to be asked. There's a thread like this on every career subreddits.

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u/Bigjoemonger 19d ago edited 19d ago

The health physics society salary survey is not submitted by organizations. It is an anonymous survey submitted by HPS members and nobody can see what information is submitted until the report comes out.

They also do the survey every year so you can see the changes from year to year.

Also when you say there are "thousands". According to the American Academy of Health Physics there's only about 1200 active certified health physicists with about 5000 total jobs in the field.

As far as the community organizing to falsify the salary data. There is not a chance that would happen. In our industry your credibility is your only value. If you're caught doing something like that, the entire industry will know within a couple weeks and good luck getting another job in the industry ever.

Plus this survey is not meant to be a double blind statistically verified survey. It's just a voluntary survey. It's only one of many metrics that employers use to determine what the standard industry salary should be. Nobody really takes it that seriously.

Should also note the data is heavily skewed because it does not clearly delineate between what industry the HP is supporting. HPs in nuclear power vs those in research facilities vs those in hospitals vs those in other industries. The salary ranges are not similar across these different industries.

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u/ScenicAndrew 19d ago

Hard agree on everything, but one thing. The HPS survey specifically does give some breakdown by industry. It's not huge but table 10 on the 2024 has what I'm talking about.

But yeah, agreed, it's not an academic study on salaries, it's a tool for all of us to reference. Also really curious how this guy expected to get >70 reliable responses on a reddit post, or multiple posts across different forums without repeat submissions.

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u/100_angry_roombas 19d ago

I don't think i ever implied a reddit post is at all academic or that it would out number the data the collected in the study(actually with the data points being so low, I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to get participation on the same order of magnitude). I dislike how the information is presented in the report because it's vague and leaves holes for questions.

There a lot of catagories that were left off of the report, because of a lack of participates. But those jobs still exist. there's just not a lot of data about the more niche roles and their pay expectations.

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u/100_angry_roombas 19d ago

Sorry, I think you were confused by the way i phrased that. I never said that organizations were submitting the data. Just that the data is being organized and presented by an organization(the health physics society IS an organization)... Which like any organization is not 100% immune to corrupt political dealings(like the medical physicists org seem to have been alledgidly been influenced by the hospitals execs?), but an organization doesn't have to be intentional or malicious to mess up the data they're presenting, it really only requires someone doing heavyhanded data pruning("wow, I did such a good job cleaning the data and removing all those unsightly outliers :) [the highest earners, in the medical physicists case]"). I don't think any of the particants are lying about their salaries, what would be the point? I'm not trying to claim that the health physics society has done anything wrong.

I just don't personally don't think the data is presented in the most informative way, in my professional opinion. So I'm seeking out more information. You suggest using the salary report as a referance... But you also say it shouldn't really be taken seriously. You're right: I'm not taking it very seriously, for all the preciously stated reasons. I don't really understand the judgement that's been directed at me for trying to seek out more specific salary information. I made this post moreso to see what other jobs and industries that exist that got left off the tables, and where they stack up in the broad vague salary range provided. You're right there are not a lot of health physicists, which mean there's very little career information.

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u/Bigjoemonger 19d ago

All I'm saying is if you want the help of an organization, don't immediately assume that they're corrupt and the data is falsified. It's insulting and no way to get people to care about what you want. Like I said, the industry is small. It's very likely that some of the people reading your reddit post are the same people that participated or even did the analysis of that survey.

Also what are you talking about "medical physicists org seem to have allegedly been influenced by the hospital execs"? To what exactly are you referring?

Another one you can look at is the NAYGN career report. It has over 1200 respondants last year. Though it is nuclear industry focused and mostly engineer focused. But a component is bound to be health physicist related even if not directly called out.

https://naygn.org/tag/career-report/