Scientific Research and Development Services H-1B Wage Premium
The DOL prevailing wage is the legal minimum an employer must pay for a given role, level, and location — not a target. Employers classified under Scientific Research and Development Services (NAICS 5417) pay a median of 11.4% above that floor, but 28.2% of filings are at or within 1% of the legal minimum.
What "Wage Premium" Means
Every H-1B Labor Condition Application states a DOL-determined prevailing wage — the minimum legally required for that occupation, experience level, and worksite. Wage premium is how much an employer's actual offered wage exceeds that floor. A 0% premium means the filing states exactly the legal minimum; it is not evidence of a problem, but it means the offered wage carries no information beyond what the law already requires.
Premium varies enormously by employer within the same industry — some pay the floor on every filing, others consistently pay well above it. The table below is not a ranking of employer quality; it measures one thing only: how each employer's offered wage compares to the legal minimum for Scientific Research and Development Services filings.
Employers Paying Furthest Above the Floor
| Employer | Certified Filings | Avg. Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Food and Drug Administration | 209 | +94.2% |
| OpenAI OpCo, LLC | 350 | +93.6% |
| Battelle Memorial Institute | 648 | +69.7% |
| National Institutes of Health, HHS | 1,046 | +69.2% |
| Ut-battelle, LLC (oak Ridge National Laboratory) | 923 | +62.6% |
| The Broad Institute, Inc. | 305 | +55.9% |
| Southwest Research Institute | 60 | +53.7% |
| American Institutes for Research | 67 | +53.1% |
Employers with at least 30 certified filings in this industry, ranked by average premium over prevailing wage.
Related H-1B Data
H1B Visa Jobs Research Team
Computed from US Department of Labor LCA disclosure files for employers classified under NAICS 5417 — Scientific Research and Development Services — comparing each filing's offered annual wage to its own DOL prevailing wage figure (annualized from an hourly rate where filed hourly), filtered to certified petitions with annual wages between $30K and $1M and a positive prevailing wage on file. Per-employer premium is shown only where an employer has at least 30 qualifying filings in this industry, to keep the percentage from being driven by a handful of cases.