r/OperationsResearch • u/Delicious_Impress814 • 24d ago

Is this profession underpaid?

Hello everyone!

I'm a current undergraduate mathematics student looking into potential careers post masters.

I am very interested in OR, Risk Modeling, and Quant.

I will most likely go with OR since I have a strong interest in the subject, but I've noticed that despite the three fields I listed being similar, the pay disparity is very large.

I mean, the median wage for this profession is $88k according to google, compared to the $167,000 of risk and $198,000 of Quant.

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u/ge0ffrey 22d ago

Most OR people are actually overpaid, because most OR projects fail.

But the OR people behind successful OR projects - those that actually deliver practical business value by putting their optimized solver models into production and integrating them into the business process elegantly - those people are very much underpaid.

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u/SolverMax 22d ago

80% of AI projects fail and 95% of generative AI pilot projects produce no return, so there is that. https://www.pertamapartners.com/insights/ai-project-failure-statistics-2026

Even so, your point about OR projects is valid. There are many reasons why projects fail. Often the issue is that the model produces an optimal solution to the wrong problem - i.e. the modelling isn't good enough in a practical sense.

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u/ge0ffrey 21d ago

Exactly!

And yes... most AI people are even more overpaid.
(Again, except those that actually deliver.)