Your Future In STEM: WHAT CAN YOU EARN?

very year, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes data related to job trends across a number of different industries. This data includes information on occupation growth, the minimum level of education required for certain jobs and the annual median earnings for workers in a specific field. If you’re looking forward to a career in STEM, there’s good news. According to the latest Labor Statistics report, jobs in computer and information technology are expected to grow 15% between 2021 and 2031, one of the fastest rates of growth across all industries. Employment in engineering fields is also expected to grow, at a slower rate of 4% over the next ten years. Even at this average growth rate however, nearly 100,000 jobs are expected to be added in the engineering industry in the next decade. Many of these new positions will be in the robotics industry, as more and more parts of the industrial economy become automated or machine-aided. Rapid job growth is also expected in other STEM fields like oil and gas extraction, cloud computing and information security. As of May 2021, the median annual salary for workers in the computer and information technology industry was $97,430. The median annual wage in the engineering and architecture industry was $79,840. Both of these figures are significantly higher than the overall median wage across all industries, which comes in at $45,760. Take a look at the selected jobs below, and see what you could earn in STEM!