AMWA Salary Survey 2007

Back to work from Atlanta. AMWA's annual conference was great, as usual, and I brought back some notes that may interest you: the results of the 2007 AMWA Salary Survey.

Tinker Gray and Cindy Hamilton gathered an impressive amount of data from this survey. The 76 slides of their presentation are available at the 'members-only' section of the AMWA Web site (www.amwa.org) and the article summarizing their findings will come out in the May 2008 issue of the AMWA Journal.

So, how much do medical writers make? Of course, it depends on sex, educational level, years of experience, and type of employer.

Mean Income by Educational Level and Sex (working full-time for a company)

Bachelor's: $73,522 (women); $90,640 (men)
Master’s: $77,339 (women); $86,240 (men)
Advanced: $91,797 (women); $101,872 (men)

Mean Income by primary Employer

Biotechnology company: $102,297
Pharmaceutical: $97,807
Medical device company: $85,451
Communication or advertising: $83,338
Clinical research organization: $76,620
Medical Ed company: $77,088
Web/medical company: $73,500
Government: $71,014
Association or professional society: $68,574
University or medical school: $64,438

Income by Job Category

Supervision or administration: $120,629
Writing/editing/supervision: $99,004
Writing (primarily): $80,441
Writing/editing (equal mixture): $73,954
Editing (primarily): $64,500
Research and writing: $69,099
Education: $63,000
Other: $91,021

Freelance Income

Mean gross income: $119,295
Mean net income (gross income – deductible expenses): $93,306
Net income as percentage of gross: 78%

Net Freelance Income by Job Category

Writing (primarily): $110,232
Editing (primarily): $46,071
Writing and editing (equal mixture): $75,891
Research and writing: $76,620
Other: $97,181

I will incorporate some other info in my ebook very soon. Thanks for reading!