Fastest-Growing Health Careers
Nurse Practitioners
Growth Rate (2021-31): +46%Median Pay: $120,680 per year
Education Requirements: Master’s in nursing
Career Overview: What is a nurse practitioner? These professionals’ responsibilities vary widely depending on their state of licensure, but in general, nurse practitioners provide primary and urgent care services to a diverse array of patients. They work in various medical settings including hospitals, physicians’ offices and clinics.
Nurse practitioners may work independently, but frequent collaboration with physicians is often necessary to ensure patients’ health and wellness. Most states allow nurse practitioners to prescribe medications, diagnose conditions and order medical tests. Some nurse practitioners specialize in areas such as geriatric health, pediatrics or mental health.
Check out our guide on how to become a nurse practitioner.
Medical and Health Services Managers
Growth Rate (2021-31): +28%Median Pay: $101,340 per year
Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree
Career Overview: Medical and health services managers are responsible for planning, directing and coordinating healthcare providers’ business activities. They usually manage an entire facility, a clinical area or department or a physician group medical practice.
Medical and health service managers wear many hats. Overall, they play a crucial role in ensuring their facilities run smoothly and efficiently. It’s up to these professionals to set departmental goals and objectives and ensure that their staff meets those goals. They also make sure their facilities are up to date with codes and regulations.
These managers recruit and supervise staff, manage facility finances, create work schedules, prepare and monitor budgets and stay in close contact with medical staff and department heads.
Physician Assistants
Growth Rate (2021-31): +28%Median Pay: $121,530 per year
Education Requirements: Master’s degree
Career Overview: Physician assistants support physicians in examining, diagnosing and treating patients in a variety of healthcare settings, including primary care and family medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry. Some physician assistants make house calls or visit patients in nursing homes.
Under the supervision of a physician, physician assistants are responsible for educating and counseling patients and their families, prescribing medication, assessing and recording a patient’s healing progress and researching various treatments.
Fastest-Growing Tech Careers
Data Scientists
Growth Rate (2021-31): +36%Median Pay: $100,910 per year
Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree
Career Overview: Data scientists extract insights and knowledge from large, complex data sets. They leverage that data to make intelligent, informed decisions to help organizations improve their performance and achieve their goals.
Conducting surveys or scraping the web to collect data is a key component of a data scientist’s job. From there, data scientists clean and classify raw data, using machine learning and data visualization software to demonstrate their findings. It’s paramount that data scientists know how to communicate their findings effectively and in a way that’s accessible to a general audience.
Information Security Analysts
Growth Rate (2021-31): +35%Median Pay: $102,600 per year
Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity or a related field
Career Overview: Information security analysts are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of an organization’s sensitive information and computer systems. They rigorously monitor networks for security breaches and investigate any attacks that may occur.
Information security analysts use software like firewalls and data encryption programs to safeguard sensitive assets. They are also responsible for documenting metrics and reporting attempted attacks. Information security analysts recommend security enhancements to management or senior IT staff, and they help other employees gain their footing with new security products and procedures.
Cybersecurity analysts are a type of information security analyst. For more information, check out our guides on information security vs. cybersecurity and how to become a cybersecurity analyst.
Web Developers
Growth Rate (2021-31): +30%Median Pay: $77,030 per year
Education Requirements: Bachelor’s degree
Career Overview: What is web development? Web development is a multidisciplinary field that involves a combination of technical and creative skills.
Web developers build websites that align with a client’s vision and business goals. These professionals must understand how to write code using programming languages such as HTML or XML. They also create and test website applications, interfaces and navigation menus, as well as collaborate with designers to determine a website’s layout and functionality.
Some web developers build the entire site; others specialize in building out particular components. For example, back-end web developers create the basic architecture of a site. Front-end developers are responsible for a site’s layout and visual features. For more information, see our guide on how to become a web developer.
Fastest-Growing Trade Careers
Wind Turbine Service Technicians
Growth Rate (2021-31): +44%Median Pay: $56,260 per year
Education Requirements: Professional certificate
Career Overview: Also known as wind techs, wind turbine service technicians install, maintain and repair wind turbines. The bulk of their work centers around maintaining wind turbines that have already been built, though these professionals may occasionally install new turbines when needed.
Wind techs inspect the exterior and physical integrity of wind turbines. They test and troubleshoot electrical, mechanical and hydraulic components and systems. They’re also responsible for replacing worn or malfunctioning equipment or components, collecting turbine data and servicing underground transmission systems.
Wind techs must be comfortable working outdoors, in confined spaces and at significant heights.
Solar Photovoltaic Installers
Growth Rate (2021-31): +27%Median Pay: $47,670 per year
Education Requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
Career Overview: Solar photovoltaic installers assemble, install and maintain photovoltaic (PV) systems that convert sunlight into energy. These systems might be needed in commercial, industrial or residential settings. Some are installed on rooftops; others sprawl on the ground.
Solar photovoltaic installers plan out PV system configurations based on site conditions and their customers’ needs. Once a PV system is installed, the technicians hook it up to the electrical system and apply weather sealant to the equipment exposed to the elements. PV installers then test the system to ensure everything works properly.
Sometimes, installers connect the PV system to the grid, but in other cases, electricians are called in. Solar photovoltaic installers must be comfortable using a variety of power tools on the job, such as drills, wrenches, saws and screwdrivers.
Notice, mostly government related jobs. I consider medical part of the government related because it's funded so much by Obamacare.
