These Are the Most Promising Jobs for Both Employment & Pay Right Now

There's a huge difference between the projected percentage growth of a category and growth in the number of something; just imagine there's only one Chick-fil-A on Earth, increasing its supply of chicken sandwiches by 50%, and 1,000 Popeyes, increasing their supply by 5%. That still means many more Popeyes sandwiches, and only a minor increase in the soggy-battered, sauce-deprived, small-pickled Chick-fil-A sandwich. 

The financial website SmartAsset understands that job growth, like chicken sandwiches, can't be measured exclusively by projected percentage growth. And so they took the information released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- with its employment projections spanning from 2018 to 20280 -- and calculated what careers will offer both job opportunities and good pay. I'm hoping they will answer my email about incorporating "good office snacks."

The website did so by filtering occupations by those with greater than 10% projected growth over the next 10 years and 2018 mean earnings greater than $62,510. So remained 48 occupations, which were they then compared using four metrics: 10-year expected percentage growth, 10-year expected growth in number of workers, average earnings, and five-year growth in earnings.

Here are the most promising jobs for both employment and pay: 

15. Computer and Information Research Scientists 
14. Clinical, Counseling and School Psychologists 
13. Postsecondary Nursing Instructors and Teachers
12. Statisticians
11. Postsecondary Business Teachers (Tie)
10. Nurse Anesthetists (Tie) 
9. Computer and Information Systems Managers
8. Psychiatrists 
7. Medical and Health Service Managers
6. Information Security Analysts 
5. Postsecondary Health Specialties Teachers
4. Applications Software Developers
3. Physician Assistants
2. Financial Managers
1. Nurse Practitioners 

There are 24 jobs listed in total, and you can find them here

The study found 19 of the top 25 occupations fall into three categories: healthcare practitioners and technical occupations, computer and mathematical occupations and education, training and library occupations. The findings are a refreshing shift away from the engineer-laden job lists we've been tossing aggressively at the Education and English majors who read our site. 

They also found that young people are already ahead of the game. Recently the site created a study on the fastest-growing jobs for young professionals and found there was a significant overlap in top-ranking occupations between the findings of that study and this one. Big-ups for nurse practitioners and physician assistants, which made the top 10 for both.

The website points out that some of the jobs ranking lower in the employment and pay study can lead to promotions to jobs that rank higher in both studies. So, even if you're broke, you could be on the track to being slightly less broke if you're strategic with your ladder climbing. 

And, hey, you don't even have to go to college to make money. Go forth and be any kind of chicken sandwich you want. Just try not to be an anti-LGBT chicken sandwich. 

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Ruby Anderson is a News Writer for Thrillist.