How to Hire a Freelance Biostatistician Quickly & Easily

A quick guide to hiring a freelance biostatistician, how much it costs, and how to write an effective job description.

What does a biostatistician do?

A biostatistician is a statistician who helps to analyze data within the life sciences/medical industry. Biostatisticians can design research studies, interpret results and draw conclusions that can direct further research. Biostatistics forms the bridge between research and the result, helping scientists make accurate inferences from data. A biostatistician may work with statistical tools and languages such as R, SPSS, SAS, Stata, and more. 

You may need to hire a freelance biostatistician for help with designing a clinical trial, analyzing complex data or interpreting the results of a research study. Here are some tips on hiring the top biostatisticians.

Where do biostatisticians work?

Biostatisticians typically work in:

• Biotech and pharma companies: Designing research studies and experiments, identify risk factors, design clinical trials  
• Medical device organizations: Help with clinical evaluation of a device throughout its life cycle; analyze, appraise and interpret data
• Medical research organizations: Analyzing complex and big datasets within the medical industry 
• Clinical research organizations: Optimizing clinical trials and interpreting results 
• Hospitals and healthcare organizations: Analyzing patient data, making predictions to improve efficiency, deliver improved healthcare and save costs
• Public health organizations: Analyze the impact of a public health initiative, study epidemiological patterns and trends, summarize findings into research reports and white papers
• Governments and non-profits: Measure impact of determining factors on general health and well-being, identify gaps and opportunities for better public health awareness

Why hire a freelance biostatistician

It can be expensive to hire a biostatistician full-time and in-house. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a biostatistician in the USA is $87,785/yr. Many small biotech organizations simply cannot afford to offer a permanent position to a biostatistician. However, thanks to the freelance revolution, many qualified scientists and data analysts are offering their services to those who need them, on demand. This is a great opportunity for SMEs to access skills at short notice and at a reasonable budget.

How much does it cost to hire a biostatistics consultant? 

A biostatistics consultant may charge upwards of $30/hr for a project. For a fixed-rate project, the costs vary from $300 to $5,000 depending on the time taken and complexity of the work involved. On Kolabtree, biostatisticians charge an average rate of $40/hr for analyzing medical/clinical data.

Hiring a clinical evaluation expert for a medical device CER may cost about $3000 for writing the entire CER from scratch, however, you can hire on an hourly basis if you only need to outsource part of your CER. 

How to write a job post for a freelance biostatistician 

While hiring a freelance biostatistician, it is important to write a clear job post to make sure you get the best applications. On-demand platforms like Kolabtree make it easy for you to create a job post for free, after which you will receive quotes from freelance experts. You can also contact freelance biostatisticians directly. 

Scope of work: Define clearly your goal of the project and the deliverable(s) expected. You may want to hire a biostatistician to verify your research data and prepare it for publication. Or you might want to consult a biostatistics expert to design a survey and analyze the results. In either case, having a clear idea of what you need to get done will help you get the best proposals from freelancers. 

By when you need to hire: Define how quickly you need to hire a freelancer. On Kolabtree, we suggest you give your project a week’s time if you’d like to get the best proposals from experts, especially for projects requiring a very high level of expertise. However, organizations have hired statisticians and got their work done in 24 hours.

Budget: Choose whether to pay by the hour or per project. If you’re not sure about the fee you can speak with freelancers to get an idea of the time/effort/research involved in the project. You can split up large projects into smaller milestones and set a deadline for each one. Speak with the freelancer directly and discuss your expectations to make sure you arrive at a mutually agreeable fee.  

Skills required: Biostatisticians work across a variety of disciplines. Several of them specialize in specific areas such as epidemiology, DNA sequencing or clinical trials. Defining the subject matter expertise required will help you narrow down the proposals you receive and ensure you are contacted by freelancers who are a good match for your project.

How to choose the best freelance biostatistics expert 

Once you receive proposals from experts, be prepared with the next set of questions you will ask. Interact directly with each freelancer and set up audio/video calls if necessary to make sure they have they have the relevant skill set. Here are a few good examples that will make sure you hire the top freelancer for your project. 

1. Does the freelancer have the subject matter expertise you’re looking for? For example if you’re looking for help with a public health project, you might want to hire someone with an educational qualification in public health or epidemiology. 
2. Does the freelancer have enough experience? For example, you might want to hire a clinical trials expert for help to design a study.  relevant experience working in a CRO or pharma/biotech company? If you’re looking for help with analyzing DNA sequencing data, you might want to hire a bioinformatician who’s worked on genomics projects.  
3. Does the freelancer’s budget and timeline suit you? Make sure you discuss all aspects of your project with freelancers in details to avoid any risk of conflict.

On Kolabtree, you can choose to hire specialized experts across a variety of subjects, such as:

Clinical research consultants  Clinical trial experts   Medical writers   Epidemiologists   Public health experts   DNA sequencing data analysts   Genomics experts   Freelance mathematicians   SPSS experts   SAS experts

Ready to hire a biostatistician? Post your project on Kolabtree and get quotes from freelance biostatisticians for free.

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