Data Scientist Salary in Ohio (2026)
The average Data Scientist in Ohio earns around $122,000/year. After taxes, your estimated take-home is $92,457/year ($7,705/month).
Take-Home Pay Breakdown
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
Annual Take-Home Pay | $92,457 |
Monthly Take-Home Pay | $7,705 |
Biweekly Take-Home Pay | $3,556 |
Hourly Take-Home Pay based on 2,080 hrs/year | $44/hr |
Federal Tax | $18,014 |
State Tax | $2,196 |
FICA Taxes | $9,333 |
Effective Tax Rate total taxes ÷ gross salary | 24.22% |
Equity compensation? Run it through the right calculator.
RSUs, ISOs, and stock sales are taxed differently. Pick the tool that matches your event.
RSU Calculator
Vest income + sell-to-cover shortfall + capital-gains projection if you hold.
Calculate RSU vestISO/AMT Calculator
Federal AMT exposure, exemption phaseout, and your AMT crossover point.
Calculate AMTStock-Comp Tax Guide
RSU vs NSO vs ISO vs capital gains — how each is taxed in plain English.
Read the guideData Scientist Salary Ranges in Ohio
Not all Data Scientists earn the same — not even close
Ohio DS clusters in three metros with genuinely distinct anchor employers. Columbus is JPMorgan-Chase tech, Nationwide Insurance, Cardinal Health, Battelle Memorial Institute, Honda R&D, and the new Intel Ohio One semiconductor campus. Cleveland is the Cleveland Clinic's clinical AI organization, Progressive Insurance's actuarial / pricing data work, KeyBank, and Sherwin-Williams. Cincinnati is P&G consumer-analytics, Kroger's 84.51° subsidiary, Fifth Third Bank, and an emerging fintech / e-commerce tier.
Principal / Staff Data Scientist
$200,000–$310,000
JPMorgan Columbus, Progressive, Cleveland Clinic, P&G; tier 5-10% below NY/CA
Senior Data Scientist
$140,000–$215,000
Strong floor at JPMC Columbus + Nationwide + 84.51° + Progressive
ML Engineer (Senior)
$155,000–$240,000
JPMC AI Research Columbus, Cleveland Clinic AI, Cardinal Health
Quantitative / Actuarial Analyst (Senior)
$135,000–$210,000
Progressive (auto pricing models), Nationwide, Western & Southern
Clinical / Healthcare DS
$130,000–$210,000
Cleveland Clinic, Cincinnati Children's, Nationwide Children's, Cardinal Health
Data Scientist (Mid-Level)
$115,000–$170,000
Healthy mid-market across all three metros; financial services slightly above
Marketing / Consumer Analytics DS
$120,000–$185,000
P&G, 84.51° (Kroger), Cintas, Macy's Cincinnati
Data Engineer
$110,000–$185,000
JPMC Columbus, Nationwide, Progressive, P&G platform teams
Analytics Engineer
$95,000–$150,000
Growing role across enterprise OH employers
Junior / New Grad DS
$80,000–$120,000
OSU / Case Western / Cincinnati MS new grads
Worth knowing: Procter & Gamble's analytics organization is one of the oldest continuously operating consumer-data shops in the US — they were running multivariate marketing-mix models in the 1970s and have effectively trained generations of consumer-CPG data scientists who later seeded analytics teams at Walmart, Unilever, Kraft, and Kroger. The 84.51° subsidiary (Kroger's analytics arm, named for Cincinnati's longitude) carries that lineage into modern grocery-retail DS. Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus operates as an FFRDC across DOD / DOE / DOH research and runs serious applied DS at scale outside the commercial path.
The Ohio DS market — Columbus financial services, Cleveland clinical AI, Cincinnati consumer
2.75%
Ohio flat state income tax above $26,050 (lowest in regional DS markets)
2.5%
Columbus / Cleveland municipal income tax — applies to non-residents too
20K+
JPMorgan Chase tech employees concentrated in Columbus (largest US bank tech hub outside NYC)
Columbus has quietly become one of the larger non-coastal DS / tech employers' clusters. JPMorgan Chase's Polaris campus in Columbus — and the McCoy Center / additional downtown locations — collectively run somewhere north of 20,000 tech employees, with applied DS teams supporting fraud detection, credit risk modeling, retail-bank personalization, and the firm's enterprise AI Research organization (the latter has formal published-research output). Nationwide Insurance, Cardinal Health, Honda R&D Americas, Battelle, and the new Intel Ohio One semiconductor build-out add depth.
Cleveland's anchor is the Cleveland Clinic, whose AI / clinical informatics organization has become a meaningful US healthcare-AI employer — predictive sepsis models, surgical-outcomes risk scoring, imaging analytics, drug discovery partnerships. Progressive Insurance Mayfield Village runs one of the country's deepest auto-insurance pricing-models and telematics-DS teams (Snapshot, the original mass-market telematics product, is fundamentally a DS product). KeyBank, Sherwin-Williams, Medical Mutual, University Hospitals, and Eaton round out the tier.
Cincinnati DS sits on Procter & Gamble's century-old consumer analytics tradition plus 84.51° (Kroger's analytics subsidiary). P&G hires for marketing-mix modeling, supply-chain optimization, and an emerging strain of brand AI work; 84.51° hires aggressively for retail-personalization, basket analytics, and pricing. Fifth Third Bank, Cintas, and Western & Southern Financial round out the financial-services tier. The Cincinnati-region Toyota North America HQ and Honda Marysville (technically Columbus-orbit) add automotive analytics.
Ohio's state income tax is effectively flat at 2.75% above $26,050 (income below that threshold is exempt). That's among the very lowest progressive-state rates in any DS market and meaningfully below OH's regional peers (Pennsylvania 3.07%, Michigan 4.25%, Indiana 3.05% with county add-ons, Illinois 4.95%, Kentucky 4.0%). For a $200K senior DS, OH state tax runs roughly $4,800 — versus $9,900 in Illinois, $8,500 in Michigan, $6,140 in Pennsylvania.
The municipal income tax is where geography matters. Columbus levies 2.5% on residents and on non-residents working in the city. Cleveland 2.5%. Cincinnati 1.8%. Suburbs vary widely — some Columbus exurbs (Westerville 2.0%, Dublin 2.0%, Powell 2.0%, Hilliard 2.5%) are similar to Columbus city, while some Cleveland suburbs (Beachwood 2.0%, Solon 2.0%, Strongsville 2.0%, Hudson 2.0%) and Cincinnati suburbs (Mason 1.12%, Blue Ash 1.25%, Indian Hill 0%) sit materially below.
What that means in dollars for a $250K JPMorgan Columbus staff DS: living in Columbus city costs the full 2.5% local plus 2.75% state = 5.25% combined. Living in a 0% LIT suburb (Upper Arlington at 2.5% is similar to Columbus, but Plain City, Powell, or Worthington vary) saves up to $4,000-$5,000/year depending on the suburb's exact rate. The Cincinnati equivalent — moving from city (1.8%) to Indian Hill (0%) on a $200K comp — saves $3,600/year.
Ohio for data scientists — three metros, three flavors
Columbus is the youngest, fastest-growing, and most coast-adjacent of Ohio's metros for DS culture. Ohio State University at the center, a substantial under-35 population, real food and arts scene in the Short North and German Village, JPMorgan and Nationwide putting genuinely big-tech-style salary structures into the local market. Cost of living is materially below Chicago / Pittsburgh / Indianapolis equivalents.
Cleveland feels more East Coast — older housing stock, more legacy industrial economy, sharper class geography, but with serious cultural depth. Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, the museum district, and a food scene that punches well above the metro's reputation. The Cleveland Clinic / University Hospitals / Case Western complex makes the eastern suburbs a genuinely high-credentialed neighborhood ecosystem.
Cincinnati sits between the two and reads the most distinct culturally — German / Catholic / Kentucky-adjacent identity, walkable Over-the-Rhine and Mt. Adams neighborhoods, riverfront with two stadiums, a serious chili tradition that needs no further commentary. The P&G / Kroger / Fifth Third tier makes for a stable mid-career DS market with limited startup density.
Climate across all three metros is real four-season Midwest — cold winters, warm humid summers. Cleveland gets lake-effect snow that adds 30-50 inches over Columbus / Cincinnati totals. Sun-hour totals are below national average but better than Pittsburgh.
Education and healthcare are strong by national standards — OSU / Case Western / University of Cincinnati anchor research universities; Cleveland Clinic / Cincinnati Children's / Nationwide Children's are all top-rated academic medical centers. School quality is sharply district-dependent, with the best public districts (Upper Arlington, Bexley, Dublin, Solon, Beachwood, Hudson, Mason, Indian Hill) being the suburban housing premium drivers.
How Ohio taxes work for data scientists (and how to keep more)
Ohio's effectively-flat 2.75% state income tax above the $26,050 threshold is one of the simplest state-tax structures in the US. A $200K senior DS pays $4,786 in OH state tax; a $400K staff DS pays $10,286. No surtaxes, no add-on, no progressive brackets above the floor. Income below $26,050 is fully exempt — relevant only for new-grad transitions or part-year residents.
Municipal income tax is the friction layer. Columbus, Cleveland, and Akron each levy 2.5% on wages earned in the city — applies to non-resident commuters too. Cincinnati 1.8%. The Regional Income Tax Agency (RITA) collects for ~330 municipalities; CCA and Cleveland's own collector handle the rest. The interaction with residency credit varies — most cities credit residents up to a percentage of tax paid to the city of employment, but the exact mechanics differ.
Ohio does NOT conform to federal Section 1202 exclusion at the state level. Startup equity gains are taxed as ordinary income at OH 2.75%. For founders / first engineers at Columbus or Cleveland startups (the Drive Capital portfolio is the most active local VC pipeline) anticipating $5M+ liquidity events, FL / TX / NV pre-event relocation can save the 2.75% state plus 2.5% municipal — modest in absolute terms but real.
Ohio retirement-income treatment: pension income is taxed but with a partial credit for pension-plan distributions, and Social Security is fully exempt. Roth distributions after age 59½ are exempt as expected. Late-career DS planning to remain in Ohio gets a friendlier tax regime than during working years, which is the opposite of the CA / NY pattern.
() availability at major OH employers: JPMorgan Chase does offer after-tax with in-plan Roth conversion, full $47,500/year. Nationwide and Progressive both offer MBR. Cleveland Clinic / Cincinnati Children's typically offer 403(b) with 457(b) on top — different vehicle than MBR but stacks meaningfully ($23,500 + $23,500 = $47K total tax-deferred at the academic-medical-center tier). P&G's plan structure is conservative; verify MBR eligibility directly. 84.51° follows Kroger plan rules — verify.
Backdoor Roth IRA $7,000/year, $4,400 single / $8,750 family standard. OH conforms federal treatment for both. Ohio specifically exempts HSA contributions on the state return.
Ohio Opportunity Zone investment: OH offers a state tax credit (up to 10% of investment, max $1M / household / 2-year period) for investments in designated OZ funds. Stacks with federal OZ deferral. Most relevant for senior DS with $1M+ net liquid assets considering Cleveland / Cincinnati / Toledo OZ real-estate funds.
- →Pick the right Columbus / Cleveland / Cincinnati suburb. Columbus: Powell / Dublin / Worthington (2.0%) saves modestly vs Columbus city (2.5%). Cleveland: Hudson / Bay Village / Westlake (2.0%) vs Cleveland (2.5%). Cincinnati: Indian Hill (0%) / Mason (1.12%) / Blue Ash (1.25%) vs Cincinnati (1.8%). Suburb selection saves $1,500-$5,000/year at $200-400K DS comp.
- →Max at JPMorgan / Nationwide / Progressive — $47,500/year above the $24,500 deferral limit. Single biggest tax-advantaged accumulation lever. Over 25 years, $700K-$1.2M tax-free retirement.
- →Cleveland Clinic / Cincinnati Children's / Nationwide Children's clinical DS: stack + . Both vehicles allow $23,500 elective deferral, total $47,000 tax-deferred annually — different mechanics than but equivalent shelter capacity.
- → sell-on-vest discipline at JPMorgan (publicly traded), Nationwide (mutual but bonus-heavy), Progressive (publicly traded), P&G (publicly traded).
- →Backdoor Roth IRA $7K/year — bypasses federal phase-out at staff+ comp.
- → $4,400 single / $8,750 family triple-tax-advantaged. Ohio-specific bonus: OH state return explicitly allows the federal HSA deduction.
- →Ohio Opportunity Zone state tax credit at $1M+ net-worth tier — stacks with federal OZ deferral. Useful for senior+ DS with concentrated equity positions looking to diversify post-vest.
Three Ohio DS submarkets — what each one looks like
Columbus financial-services + tech, Cleveland clinical AI + insurance, and Cincinnati consumer + retail are three structurally different OH data science career paths.
Columbus financial services + tech (JPMorgan Chase / Nationwide / Cardinal / Battelle / Intel)
Senior $145K-$220K · Staff $200K-$310K · MLE / quant tier $190K-$340KJPMorgan Chase's Polaris and McCoy Center campuses run one of the largest US bank tech operations outside NYC — fraud detection, credit-risk modeling, retail-bank personalization, AI Research (formal academic-style published research). Nationwide Insurance HQ runs deep actuarial / pricing DS. Cardinal Health, Battelle Memorial Institute (FFRDC), Honda R&D Americas (Marysville), and the under-construction Intel Ohio One semiconductor campus (New Albany, planned ~3,000 jobs) add depth.
Columbus is the largest non-coastal financial-services tech hub in the US, full stop. JPMorgan alone is the equivalent of a top-50 US tech employer in terms of DS / MLE headcount, and the average comp is meaningfully above the national bank-tech mean. Outside JPMC, Nationwide and Battelle are real ladder-climbers' employers with stable senior+ paths.
Cleveland clinical AI + insurance (Cleveland Clinic / Progressive / KeyBank / University Hospitals)
Senior clinical DS $135K-$210K · Principal $200K-$300K · Progressive senior tier $160K-$260KThe Cleveland Clinic AI / clinical informatics organization runs predictive sepsis modeling, surgical-outcomes risk scoring, radiology-imaging analytics, and emerging drug discovery partnerships. Progressive Insurance Mayfield Village operates one of the country's deepest auto-insurance pricing-models and telematics-DS teams (Snapshot is fundamentally a DS product). KeyBank tech, Sherwin-Williams analytics, Medical Mutual, University Hospitals, and Eaton round out the tier.
Cleveland Clinic clinical DS is one of the few US healthcare-AI organizations operating at a scale where individual research output is genuinely measurable — papers, FDA submissions, integrated EHR-deployed models. Progressive's actuarial / pricing path is unusually quantitative for an insurance employer.
Cincinnati consumer + retail (P&G / 84.51° (Kroger) / Fifth Third / Cintas)
Senior DS $130K-$200K · Principal $190K-$280K · Director $250K-$380KProcter & Gamble's century-old analytics organization (marketing-mix modeling, supply-chain optimization, brand AI) anchors the consumer-DS tier. 84.51° (Kroger's data subsidiary, named for Cincinnati's longitude) is one of the largest grocery-retail analytics organizations globally — basket analytics, personalization, pricing, supply-chain. Fifth Third Bank tech, Cintas, Western & Southern Financial, and emerging fintech / e-commerce employers add breadth.
P&G's consumer-DS tradition has trained a generation that now seeds analytics leadership at Walmart, Unilever, Kraft, and most CPG firms. The Cincinnati path is steady, mid-comp, and structurally tied to consumer-goods cycles. 84.51° is the most aggressive growth employer in the metro.
The Ohio DS career arc — from OSU / Case Western / Cincinnati MS to staff or director
Year 0-2 (New Grad / Junior DS): $80K-$120K total comp at JPMC Columbus, Nationwide, Progressive Mayfield, P&G, 84.51°, Cleveland Clinic. OSU Master's of Data Analytics / Case Western MS / University of Cincinnati MS new grads cluster $90K-$110K at financial-services and pharma; clinical-DS tier at the Cleveland Clinic starts a touch lower but trades for academic publication opportunities. JPMorgan AI Research / Battelle research-tier roles can start higher for strong PhD candidates. Start + Backdoor Roth from the first paycheck.
Year 2-5 (Mid-Level Data Scientist): $115K-$175K. Specialization develops along the metro's anchor: Columbus DS gravitate toward credit-risk / fraud / banking AI at JPMC vs. actuarial / pricing at Nationwide vs. national-lab work at Battelle. Cleveland DS gravitate toward clinical AI at the Clinic vs. auto-insurance pricing at Progressive vs. enterprise data platforms at KeyBank / Sherwin-Williams. Cincinnati DS toward consumer marketing-mix at P&G vs. retail personalization at 84.51°. vesting at publicly-traded employers (JPMC / Progressive / P&G / KeyBank / Fifth Third) accelerates compounding.
Year 5-10 (Senior / Staff DS): $190K-$300K. The suburb-selection tax arbitrage compounds meaningfully at this comp level — $3K-$5K/year in municipal-tax savings is real. Senior MLE roles at JPMC AI Research or Cleveland Clinic AI can clear $280K with bonus + equity. Director track opens here; principal IC track opens for those preferring depth over management.
Year 10+ (Principal / Director / VP Analytics): $250K-$500K+. Director of Data Science / VP Analytics at JPMC Columbus / Nationwide / Progressive / P&G typically clears $400K with bonus + . Battelle senior research staff have unusual academic-style upside via grant-funded research lines. FIRE is genuinely accessible at this tier given Ohio's very low cost of living relative to coastal markets — a Columbus director earning $400K saves more in absolute dollars than an SF director earning $500K, given housing and tax math.
Where Ohio data scientists actually live
OH DS residential geography is dominated by three structural facts: the city / suburb municipal-income-tax delta, public school district quality, and commute geometry to the specific anchor employer. Columbus's JPMorgan-tech population disperses widely across Franklin and Delaware counties; Cleveland's split east / west around the Clinic and Progressive; Cincinnati's narrows to the I-71 / I-75 corridors and Northern Kentucky.
Short North / German Village, Columbus
Walkable urban · 2.5% Columbus LIT · $1,400-$2,200/mo 1BR · OSU/JPMC commute
Upper Arlington / Bexley, Columbus
Top-rated schools · 2.5% LIT · $700K-$2M+ houses · 15-min downtown commute
Dublin / Powell / Worthington, Columbus
Top schools · 2.0% LIT (vs Columbus 2.5%) · JPMC Polaris / Honda Marysville commute
Westerville / New Albany, Columbus
Intel Ohio One adjacency · 2.0% LIT · Westerville 2.0% · top schools · suburban
Beachwood / Pepper Pike, Cleveland (East)
Cleveland Clinic adjacency · 2.0% LIT · top schools · senior DS family demographic
Hudson / Aurora / Solon, Cleveland (Southeast)
2.0% LIT · best Akron-area schools · 25-30 min Cleveland Clinic / Progressive commute
Indian Hill / Madeira / Mariemont, Cincinnati
Indian Hill 0% LIT · top-rated schools · highest-end Cincinnati suburb · P&G commute
Mason / Blue Ash / Montgomery, Cincinnati
Mason 1.12% / Blue Ash 1.25% · top schools · 84.51° / Kroger commute
The Indian Hill / Madeira and Hudson / Bay Village patterns are the highest-end suburban-school + low-LIT optimization plays in their respective metros. Columbus's spread is wider — Powell and Worthington and Bexley each represent a different lifestyle / tax / commute trade.
Is this the right move?
Ohio for data scientists — who it works for
Working in your favor
- +Ohio flat 2.75% state income tax (above $26K floor) is among the very lowest in any progressive-state DS market — meaningfully below all neighboring states
- +JPMorgan Chase Columbus is the largest US bank-tech hub outside NYC — 20K+ tech employees, formal AI Research org with published output, deep applied DS bench
- +Cleveland Clinic clinical AI organization is one of the most credible US healthcare-AI employers, with measurable academic publication output and FDA-submitted models
- +Cost of living dramatically below coastal markets — senior DS at $200-300K can buy houses in top-rated school districts (Indian Hill / Hudson / Upper Arlington) that are unaffordable in SF / NYC / Boston
- +Suburb-selection municipal-tax arbitrage saves $1,500-$5,000/year for senior DS — Columbus 2.0% suburbs vs 2.5% city, Cincinnati Indian Hill 0% vs 1.8%
- +Procter & Gamble + 84.51° (Kroger) Cincinnati gives consumer-DS career path that doesn't really exist anywhere else in the US
Worth knowing before you sign
- −No major coastal research-lab presence — Microsoft Research / Google Brain / OpenAI / Anthropic / Meta FAIR equivalents simply don't exist in OH
- −Municipal income taxes (Columbus / Cleveland 2.5%, Cincinnati 1.8%) apply to non-resident commuters and are higher than most US local rates
- −Ohio does NOT conform to federal Section 1202 QSBS exclusion — startup equity gains taxed as ordinary income at 2.75% state
- −Cleveland and Cincinnati DS markets are structurally narrower — outside the Clinic / Progressive / P&G / 84.51° gravity wells, senior+ mobility is limited
- −Winter weather is real Midwest — Cleveland lake-effect snow adds 30-50 inches versus Columbus / Cincinnati totals
Job Market in Ohio
Ohio has active demand for Data Scientists.
Growth outlook: 36% growth through 2032 (much faster than average)
Related job titles:
Cost of Living in Ohio
Ohio has a varied cost of living by region.
💰 Monthly take-home: $7,705
🏠 Typical rent: $1,600/mo
📊 After rent: $6,105/mo
Calculate Your Exact Take-Home Pay
Add 401(k) contributions, HSA, dependents, and more to see your personalized take-home.
Open Full CalculatorFrequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions about your taxes and our calculator.
Compare Two States
See how income tax, take-home pay, and total tax burden differ between any two US states side by side.
State 1
State 2