Fast-growing quantum tech industry has well-paid jobs — and most don’t require a graduate degree

In 2015, Marie Grubb, a supermarket cake decorator, spotted a job advertisement for a technician position at quantum technology company Infleqtion (then called ColdQuanta). The job didn’t require a PhD, a background in physics, or even experience working with quantum computers; the posting only asked that applicants have “good fine motor skills.”

After years of carefully sculpting waves, letters, and roses with frosting, Grubb knew she qualified.

“They had me placing extremely small components, bonding a lot of glass cells — just knowing how to hold my hands and steady myself really did make a difference,” said Grubb, who ultimately spent seven years as the lead technician at Infleqtion, a Colorado-based quantum hardware and software company that has offices in Illinois, Wisconsin, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Cake decorating and quantum computers may not appear to have much in common, but Grubb thrived during her time at Infleqtion — underscoring an under-recognized fact about the fast-growing, and often well-paid, quantum technology workforce: it isn’t just for PhD physicists anymore.

“There are a lot of skills that people can get in other areas that are totally transferrable,” Grubb said. “It’s just being able to see that value and run with it.”

More than half of all quantum technology jobs do not require a graduate degree, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis conducted by the Chicago Quantum Exchange, an intellectual hub that connects top universities, national labs, and industry partners to advance the science and engineering of quantum information, train the future quantum workforce, and drive the quantum economy. This is especially true in the industry sector, where the CQE found that about two-thirds of quantum jobs are open to those with a bachelor’s degree or less — a number experts say is consistent with the field’s recent commercialization but may run contrary to public expectation. It also matches what smaller-scale studies have suggested.

“You do not need to be a quantum anything to work in a quantum company, whether you have a PhD or a high school degree,” said Dana Anderson, who co-founded the company now known as Infleqtion in 2007 and is its chief technology officer. “Most of what makes quantum work is not quantum. It’s the person that knows how to solder, or the person who has the sense of aesthetics needed for making things beautiful and functional, like Marie. There are very few people who need to know Schrödinger’s equation.”

This is important because it represents a huge opportunity: quantum technology — which takes advantage of the unique properties of quantum mechanics — is a rapidly growing sector that has the potential to revolutionize multiple industries, boost economies, and revitalize vulnerable communities. Estimates suggest a quantum technology market size of more than $106 billion by 2040.

In the Chicago region, for instance, there are more than 400 direct, permanent quantum jobs, 100 with quantum technology companies. That number has grown significantly in the past five years — and it is expected to skyrocket into the tens, or even hundreds, of thousands over the next decade as quantum startups continue to launch and grow, end-use companies adopt the technology, and the newly announced, multibillion-dollar Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park is built and opens on Chicago’s South Side.

 The new jobs will be available to people from a wide range of technical backgrounds. For example, when Palo Alto-based startup PsiQuantum announced in July that it would anchor the quantum park — constructing a 300,000-square-foot center with the aim of building the first US-based, utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer — it noted that the approximately 150 jobs it expects to bring to the region in the first five years will be aimed at a variety of levels, including “not only PhDs in quantum physics, but careers in mechanical, optical, and electrical engineering; software development, and technical lab work.”

 "Quantum computing will be the fulcrum of a new innovation community," PsiQuantum CEO Jeremy O'Brien said when the park’s location was announced. "It will serve as a foundation for critical industry in Illinois and across the United States, stirring a new industrial revolution. … From developing new life-saving drugs and next-generation batteries and solar cells, this quantum computer will change how the world lives, works, and heals. And that machine will be built here in Chicago — a new beacon of innovation and progress."

 Adjacent occupations most closely related to quantum technical roles are high paying: for instance, computer hardware engineers nationally earn a mean annual wage of $147,770; software developers earn an average of $138,110; and computer systems analysts earn an average of $110,800, according to 2023 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jobs like these generally do not require a PhD but do require skills that are transferrable to quantum technology with a small amount of retraining, either on the job or through professional education programs.

 “There is something for anyone who is interested in getting in on the ground floor of this ‘industry of the future,’” said Celia Merzbacher, the executive director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C®), a consortium that enables and expands the US quantum industry and is managed by SRI International. “QED-C members, including corporations, universities and national labs, have difficulty finding qualified workers at all levels. Large companies are offering in-house training to upskill their existing workers. Would-be quantum technologists can also find opportunities at companies that make components for quantum, such as lasers and photonics, and at companies that will be users of quantum tech.”

The demand for quantum technology workers is so great, in fact, that major industry players, like IBM, SandboxAQ, Xanadu, Wolfram Research and others have entire teams dedicated to quantum education and workforce development. Those programs are aimed at building an inclusive and sustainable quantum workforce and addressing what some worry is, or will become, a quantum workforce shortage. The CQE has made workforce development a central part of its mission, too — and it is a major part of two CQE-led projects, the Economic Development Administration-designated Bloch Quantum Tech Hub and the US National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) Development Award: Advancing quantum technologies in the Midwest.

“Quantum technologies have the potential to transform our society, and part of realizing that vision is building and nurturing a workforce that draws people with different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives,” said David Awschalom, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and the director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. “There will always be an important place for those with PhDs, but for the sector to scale, we will also need technicians, programmers, and even people who run the human resources, legal, marketing, and other functions associated with a growing quantum company. This field is growing rapidly, and that means the need for workers is growing rapidly, too.”

Data-Driven Analysis

To imagine someone working in “quantum physics” brings to mind an Einstein-like archetype — someone with deeply advanced knowledge, ensconced in an isolated laboratory. But for years now, leaders in the field have been declaring that it doesn’t need only people with an Einstein-level understanding of quantum physics — it also needs people with other skills, and it needs them to be curious, creative, and willing to learn.

To examine and quantify this claim, the Chicago Quantum Exchange built a database of more than 5,000 quantum jobs posted by QED-C and the Quantum Computing Report, a website devoted to the quantum technology industry. For 2022 and 2023, 55% of the jobs in the database only required a bachelor’s degree, an associate’s degree, or did not require a degree at all. By comparison, about 14% of jobs in those years required a master’s degree and about 31% required a PhD. 

The database included postings such as Supply Chain Manager at Rigetti Computing, Principal System Architect at Microsoft Quantum, and Lead Optical Engineer at Honeywell (now Quantinuum), all of which called for bachelor’s degrees. Many of the postings for PhDs were postdoctoral positions at universities and national labs, as well as roles such as Operations Researcher at 1Qbit and Experimental Physicist at Xanadu. The database also included hundreds of postings that did not specify any degree requirements at all, including Thin Film Support Engineer at Amazon Web Services, Cloud Architect at Qrypt, Design Enablement Engineer at IBM, and Quantum Product Manager at IBM. 

The CQE study suggests that the proportion of quantum jobs that are open to those with bachelor’s degrees is increasing: in 2021, bachelor’s degree jobs and PhD jobs were represented equally in the database at about 35%. In 2023, jobs requiring bachelor’s degrees were inching upward, to 38% of the database, while PhD jobs were inching downward, to 29%. The remainder of jobs posted required a master’s degree or did not list a degree requirement at all.

The availability of bachelor’s-or-less positions was most pronounced in the industry sector, where only 19% of jobs posted in 2021, 2022, and 2023 required a PhD (about 16% required a master’s). By comparison, up to 80% percent of quantum jobs in academia and over 70% of jobs in government (including national labs) required a PhD.

“As quantum computing moves further into the era of utility, it’s natural that we see an increasing number of roles that don’t require a PhD,” said Jay Gambetta, vice president of quantum computing at IBM. “Just like classical computing, where the majority of developers don’t have PhDs, increased levels of abstraction in the software stack will lower the barriers to entry. We are working towards the future where anyone tackling a complex problem can utilize a quantum computer, even without a background in quantum physics.”

According to a survey released by Statista in 2023, 41.2% of the software developers worldwide listed a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree attained and just over 23% listed a master's degree. 

It is important to note that just because a quantum technology job is open to non-PhDs doesn’t mean it is entry level: many of the job descriptions the CQE reviewed required experience in a quantum-adjacent field, such as computer science or engineering. It is also impossible to know who was ultimately hired for any of these roles; just because a position doesn’t require candidates to have a PhD doesn’t mean that those with PhDs aren’t ultimately selected.

This evolution away from PhD-heavy hiring is typical for an emerging innovation sector: as a technology becomes more advanced, it becomes more user-friendly. Experts say this is what’s happening in quantum.

“We're just now getting into an era where our sophisticated machinery is mature enough that you don't need a PhD to run it and fix its everyday illnesses,” Anderson said. “We still have very long way to go, but this is the transition that quantum companies have to make.”

As was the case with Grubb, the cake decorator who worked at Infleqtion, sometimes the skills a quantum technology company needs are ones developed in an unrelated industry.

For instance, Aaron Miller, the founder and president of Detroit-based quantum optics company Quantum Opus, said he has hired jewelry makers.

“They can deal with metals, they can laser weld under a microscope, they know the language,” he said. “We’ve got tiny, breakable, really expensive pieces that they know how to handle safely, and we even use polished sapphire rods — it almost does look a little bit like jewelry when it’s done.”

No PhD Required

Quantum startup company QuantCAD takes a unique approach to hiring. Instead of advertising open positions with typical job descriptions, they write about the problem that they need solved — and ask for someone with the skills to solve it. Most postings don’t even include the word “quantum.” As a result, the applicants for their latest hire came from a diverse range of educational backgrounds, including computer science, physics, and engineering. Degree attainment varied, too, drawing candidates with bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and PhDs.

“We interviewed all across that range,” said Jennifer Flatté, CEO and co-founder of QuantCAD. “Because really what we wanted to know was, do we think this person can help us solve the problem? And we don't mind hiring young and teaching and training. We needed somebody who has got the creativity and a good way of thinking about how to approach problems.”

To test creativity, QuantCAD included several unusual questions in the application. One asked, “You are at the back of a crowd trying to cross a rickety wooden bridge over a gorge. What superpower do you wish for and how would you use it?” Another asked applicants to describe how gumball machines might work in the year 2089.

Flatté anonymized the answers to the questions and handed them to her team. Once the team selected the responses they liked most, Flatté then shared all the resumes of all the applicants.

“We looked through them, but there was nobody we added based on looking at the resume alone,” she said. “And there were definitely some people that we did look at based on their answers that we would not have looked at had we only looked at the resumes.”

This is the benefit of forging a path in a new field, Flatté said.

“It doesn't have to look like physics, and it doesn't have to look like astronomy, and it doesn't have to look like math or computer science,” she said. “It can look like something totally different because we’re just at the beginning.”

This was echoed by other employers and reflected on job boards. For example:

• Lake Shore Cryotronics, a cryogenic measurement solutions company, told the CQE in a recent Q&A that they generally look for engineers, physicists, and technicians who are quick learners and can apply their math and science training to solve problems. “It is rare that we hire someone with past quantum or cryogenic experience,” said Scott Yano, the company’s chief technology officer. “The ability to leverage current knowledge while learning new technologies is key.”
• IBM posted a job for a Research Scientist in Quantum that required hands-on experience in etching and wafer patterning fabrication but was flexible on educational background, asking for a bachelor’s degree from a wide range of fields, including — but not limited to — chemistry, physics, materials science, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, nanoscience, and general engineering.
• Infleqtion posted a job for a Machine Learning Software Engineer that didn’t list a required degree but included this: “Deep knowledge of quantum physics is not required for this position, but applicants should have a strong interest in learning how it all works.”

Degree requirements varied by job types, according to the CQE study. Computer science jobs had roughly an equal number of bachelor’s degree and PhD postings, while physics jobs had twice as many PhD as bachelor’s degree postings. Engineering jobs were the opposite, with far more postings requiring only a bachelor’s degree.

“Most of our physicists aren’t doing physics, they're really doing engineering,” Anderson said. “The main reason you want someone with a PhD is not actually that they solve quantum problems; it’s that PhDs know how to solve hard problems. And we do have lots of hard problems that mostly turn out to be engineering problems. We only have very few people worried about calculating the excitation spectrum of rubidium and things like that. They’re mostly working as engineers.”

Training the Quantum Workforce

Quantum technology, while revolutionary, runs on a foundation of entirely classical systems. Even code on a quantum computer is managed and run by code used in traditional software. The cryogenic systems and electronic circuits necessary for quantum engineering are also well-established technologies with a long, non-quantum history.

For this reason, many of the technical skills required for quantum jobs — coding in Python, working with analog circuits, etching semiconductor wafers — can be learned or acquired in fields that aren’t quantum at all. Sometimes they can be learned on the job: that’s why so many employers told us that what they most need aren’t PhD quantum physicists — although there are still important careers for those with doctorate degrees — but curious learners with experience in another field and a willingness to pivot.

That’s also why projects aimed at quantum commercialization often have a workforce development component focused on building the programming that will equip workers with the skills to make that shift.

Earlier this year, a multi-sector, CQE-led coalition received a $1 million US National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) Development Award to deepen partnerships and strengthen workforce and economic development plans in the region, and last year the Chicago region was named a US Regional Innovation and Technology Hub for quantum technologies by the US EDA, advancing the work of another multi-sector, CQE-led coalition, The Bloch Quantum Tech Hub. The Bloch received a $500,000 award in July. As initiatives like these expand and attract new funding, they will fuel not only the creation of jobs but efforts to train the people who will fill those jobs — including an effort co-led by City Colleges of Chicago and Harper College to build the single largest community-college-focused quantum technology education program in the nation. Community colleges in the area already award 12,000 quantum-relevant degrees and certificates annually.

For employers — from startups to Fortune 500 companies — having programs that educate people at a variety of levels is key. IBM, for instance, hires at bachelor's, master's, and PhD levels — from quantum software developers and hardware engineers to roles including design, marketing, sales, business development, and product management. To ensure a robust talent pool, the company works with over 270 organizations in the IBM Quantum Network to support education and workforce development efforts, including a collaboration with the University of Chicago, the University of Tokyo, Keio University, Yonsei University, Seoul National University to train 40,000 students over the next 10 years.

The company says it has taught more than 700 classes with IBM Quantum tools and resources, worked with more 22,000 students via in-person events on campuses worldwide, and reached more than 8.6 million learners across all of their educational platforms.

Workforce development initiatives, in fact, are becoming common at quantum technology companies. For example, SandboxAQ, an Alphabet Inc. spinoff and enterprise B2B company that works at the nexus of AI and quantum technology (AQ), partners with universities to jointly develop AI + quantum curriculum, bootcamps, and certification programs and offers open-access educational materials through SandboxAQ Academy. Xanadu, a full-stack quantum computing company based in Toronto, works with universities across the globe, running educational events ​such as quantum hackathons ​and creating ​instructional ​materials​ for university faculty teaching quantum programming​. In February, Wolfram Research and Infleqtion announced a collaboration with QuSTEAM, a nonprofit quantum education initiative, to expand and improve undergraduate quantum education, integrate practical quantum technologies into curricula, and provide opportunities for hands-on learning, internships, and workshops.

The CQE also partners with the University of Chicago on professional education programs that equip early- and mid-career professions from both science and business backgrounds with quantum technical skills. Those include a four-day intensive course in quantum engineering and technology that is aimed at business professionals looking to understand and advocate for quantum technologies in a variety of fields and a virtual eight-week quantum science, networking, and communications course that is aimed at scientists and engineers.

Mohsin Ansari, a portfolio strategist at a financial company who has a background in math and engineering, took the eight-week course after learning about quantum technology by watching free lectures on YouTube and elsewhere. Ansari said the program was a “game changer” for him that formalized everything he had been learning on his own.

“You got live access to professors, and it was a small class, so I was able to ask a lot of questions,” he said.

He credits the program with his participation and success in the BIG Q Hackathon by CQE and QuantX last year, where he and his team won the business challenge by proposing a quantum computing solution to a technical problem put forth by Boeing.

“We were able to talk to professionals that had submitted the problems that were to be solved,” Ansari said. “That really helped me understand that this technology actually could help them and that we may not be that far away from actually having real world problems that could be solved with quantum computers.”

Although Ansari isn’t working for a quantum technology company, the training and experience has equipped him to contribute to this sort of problem-solving as quantum innovations enter the market — and to offer clients deeply informed advice about quantum technology investments as opportunities emerge.

Expanding Opportunities

Although the month-to-month changes in quantum job availability have trended both up and down in recent years, experts say there is little doubt that we’ll see an overall expansion as an increasing number of quantum innovations reach practical application. And the biggest beneficiaries, they add, will be those who identify entry points that fit their own skills, experience, and interests.

“In the coming decade, we will see tens of thousands of new quantum jobs in the CQE region alone,” said CQE CEO Kate Timmerman. “Part of our focus at the CQE and through The Bloch is ensuring that the quantum ecosystem grows in an inclusive and sustainable way — and that means making sure people understand that there are many ways to contribute to, and benefit from, this growing field. Nobody should assume that quantum jobs are out of reach just because they’re working in a different industry.”

Jenna Theis, director of operations for Chicago-based quantum startup EeroQ Quantum Hardware, moved into quantum after working in the cannabis industry for 10 years. Much of the lab equipment is similar, she said.

“The transition was almost fluid, because it really was utilizing the skills I had,” she said. “Obviously there was a bit of a learning curve since I hadn’t taken a physics class since high school, but it’s not really required for me to get lost in the minutiae of quantum. We already have people whose job it is to know that stuff.”

The key, she said, was not being afraid.

“Physics and quantum can seem threatening at first,” she said, “but you just have to embrace change and go for it.”

A consensus among employers was that now is the perfect time to join the sector of quantum technology.

“There's so many opportunities now for non-scientists to get involved,” said Christine Johnson, who co-founded the quantum company Ingenii despite not having a technical background. “The biggest advice that I have for people is: think through, why are you interested in quantum? What's exciting and what pulls you to it? It's just really figuring out what excites you and what's going to get you up in the morning.”

Infleqtion’s Anderson said there are more opportunities to come.

“The wave is still rising,” he said, “and that means you get to carve out your career, your path, your tremendous opportunities, and you don’t have to know Schrodinger’s equation. Whatever training you have, there’s probably a place for it.”

Meredith Fore, the author of this piece, shared the findings of her analysis at the QED-C Plenary meeting at Northwestern University in March 2024. 

Contributors: Aditya Singh and Jelani Hannah helped input data from job postings. Robin Ficke, Wendy Wu, and Himashi Jayasundera of World Business Chicago examined broader datasets to help us better understand our findings and put them in context. QED-C and Quantum Computing Report provided the job posting data that we used to build our database. We thank them for their contributions.