Pay + growth ranking

High pay and growing - the best of both

Occupations that combine a high median wage with positive projected employment growth through 2034, the roles with both pay and momentum, plus their AI exposure. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2024–2034 (wages as of May 2024), across 826 of 832 tracked occupations with a published median wage (17 are top-coded by BLS at $239,200 or more; 6 have no BLS wage figure). See our methodology for how AI-exposure scores are computed.

The short version

17 occupations share the top of this ranking: BLS publishes each one's median wage only as $239,200 or more (its top-code), so they are tied and listed by 2024 employment. Family medicine physicians has the highest exact median, $238,380. The full list below pairs each occupation with its AI-exposure score, so you can read the pay, growth and size of US work alongside how automatable it is, all from the same federal dataset.

The full ranking

# Occupation
1 Physicians, all other
2 Anesthesiologists
3 Emergency medicine physicians
4 Radiologists
5 Psychiatrists
6 Surgeons, all other
7 Obstetricians and gynecologists
8 Cardiologists
9 Orthopedic surgeons, except pediatric
10 Physicians, pathologists
11 Ophthalmologists, except pediatric
12 Dermatologists
13 Neurologists
14 Oral and maxillofacial surgeons
15 Orthodontists
16 Pediatric surgeons
17 Prosthodontists
18 Family medicine physicians
19 General internal medicine physicians
20 Airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers
21 Dentists, all other specialists
22 Nurse anesthetists
23 Pediatricians, general
24 Chief executives
25 Dentists, general
26 Computer and information systems managers
27 Architectural and engineering managers
28 Physicists
29 Financial managers
30 Natural sciences managers
31 Marketing managers
32 Judges, magistrate judges, and magistrates
33 Computer hardware engineers
34 Podiatrists
35 Lawyers
36 Air traffic controllers
37 Petroleum engineers
38 Computer and information research scientists
39 Compensation and benefits managers
40 Human resources managers
41 Purchasing managers
42 Public relations managers
43 Medical dosimetrists
44 Sales managers
45 Pharmacists
46 Managers, all other
47 Database architects
48 Aerospace engineers
49 Optometrists
50 Physician assistants

Source: BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034 (employment, growth, wages); O*NET task data for AI-exposure analysis by PlainWorkforce. Ranked across 826 of 832 tracked occupations with a published median wage (17 are top-coded by BLS at $239,200 or more; 6 have no BLS wage figure).

How this ranking is built

Employment, projected growth and median-wage figures come directly from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2024–2034 and Occupational Employment Statistics. AI-exposure scores are PlainWorkforce's analysis of O*NET 30.0 task data, estimating the share of each occupation's tasks susceptible to current automation. Pairing the two lets you see not just where the jobs, pay or decline are, but how exposed each role is to AI. You can verify the underlying projections with BLS →.

Caveats and limitations

BLS projections are model-based and carry their own uncertainty intervals; they predate the most recent macroeconomic shifts. Percentage changes can look dramatic for small occupations, always check absolute employment on each occupation page. AI-exposure scores estimate current task automatability and may shift as capabilities advance.

Related rankings

Safest from AI → Fastest-growing → All rankings Key statistics

Every figure on PlainWorkforce is rendered directly from BLS/O*NET source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these figures, or report a data error. Data current as of BLS Employment Projections 2024-2034.