Career Path Explorer
Compare occupations by published education category, projected employment change, wage estimates, and available workplace-safety context. These measures come from separate U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics programs; see our methodology.
Compare a career's published wage, projected growth, education category, and available safety context before treating it as a personal recommendation.
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS and Employment Projections data used by WageDex, WageDex keeps these measures separate because they answer different questions: BLS wage estimates describe a survey period, Employment Projections describe an occupation-level 2024–2034 outlook, and education fields are typical-entry classifications. Use the explorer to compare the published data, then verify local openings, licensing, program costs, and employer terms from sources that cover those decisions.
What these career measures show
OEWS wage percentiles describe a cross-sectional wage distribution: the 10th percentile is the wage below which 10% of covered workers fall, and the 90th percentile is the boundary below which 90% fall. They are not career stages and do not show how one worker's pay changes with experience.
The BLS Employment Projections supply projected 2024–2034 employment change and annual openings. These are occupation-level projections, not a forecast of competition, hiring probability, or the outcome for one candidate. The education and training fields are BLS typical-entry assignments; they do not measure a particular program's duration, tuition, completion rate, or return on investment.
Workplace-safety context comes from BLS CFOI and SOII rather than from the wage or projections tables. WageDex limits superlative safety rankings to occupations with a published occupation-specific rate; a broad SOC-group rate is context, not an occupation measurement. Use the filters to inspect the published measures together, then verify program costs, licensing requirements, local openings, and employer terms from sources that actually cover those decisions.
Careers by Education Level
Top Growing Careers
| Occupation | Median Salary | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Wind Turbine Service Technicians | $64,120 | +50% |
| Solar Photovoltaic Installers | $53,140 | +42% |
| Nurse Practitioners | $132,300 | +40% |
| Data Scientists | $120,230 | +34% |
| Information Security Analysts | $129,180 | +29% |
| Medical and Health Services Managers | $123,860 | +23% |
Last updated: May 2025 (BLS OEWS annual release). Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025. Download the occupation wage dataset (CSV) , open extract wired into this page's Dataset JSON-LD.