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Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations are a hot topic in economic research, job training and economic development programs, and the media. These occupations are at the forefront of cutting-edge activities such as artificial intelligence, robotics, medical research, and high-tech manufacturing. STEM occupations are generally high paying and highly skilled: compared with all occupations, STEM occupations are more likely to have above-average wages and require postsecondary education for entry.1 They are also fast growing. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Projections program, STEM employment is projected to increase at nearly 3 times the rate of non-STEM employment between 2023 and 2033.2
Analyzing data for STEM occupations can be challenging because many definitions of STEM exist, and different definitions may be better for different purposes. The variety of definitions can make it more difficult for data users to understand what a particular STEM dataset represents, compare STEM data from different sources, or determine how well a given STEM dataset meets the data user’s needs. To address the STEM definition question, the interagency Standard Occupational Classification Policy Committee (SOCPC) has developed options for defining STEM under the federal 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system.3 Although the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program produces a customer dataset based on a specific definition of STEM, this definition represents only one possible subset of the SOCPC definition options.4 This Beyond the Numbers (BTN) article provides research and analysis of STEM occupations by presenting employment and wage data for different definitions of STEM, based on options for defining STEM developed by the interagency SOCPC. This article uses a special tabulation of May 2023 OEWS data to look at national STEM employment and wages for alternate SOCPC definitions.
Classifying occupations to help define STEM
The SOCPC guidance classifies STEM occupations into four subdomains based on the STEM subject area associated with each occupation, which are
life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology;
The guidance also groups STEM occupations into five occupation types, based on the job duties and type of work performed, which are
research, development, design, or practitioner occupations;
technologist and technician occupations;
postsecondary teaching occupations;
managerial occupations;
and sales occupations.
Combining the four subdomains with the five occupation types produces a grid or matrix structure.6 When combining the four subdomains with the five occupation types to analyze the different STEM groups, some subdomains do not contain all occupation types.
Some occupations do not fit neatly into a single subdomain or occupation type, so the SOCPC recommendations assign them to two subdomains or occupation types. For example, the SOC occupation Architectural and Engineering Managers (11-9041) is split between two subdomains: the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain (engineering managers) and the architecture subdomain (architectural managers).
In practice, it is not possible to split the OEWS survey data for a single SOC category between two subdomains or occupation types. For example, within SOC code Architectural and Engineering Managers (11-9041), it is not possible to determine which jobs represent architectural managers and which represent engineering managers in order to assign each job to the appropriate subdomain. Therefore, in order to prevent double counting, split occupations were assigned to only one subdomain or occupation type in the data tabulation used for this article.7 Assigning split occupations to a single cell will tend to overestimate employment for some subdomains and occupation types and underestimate employment for others, which may also affect the wage estimates for some cells. The effects may be particularly large for smaller subdomains or occupation types containing split occupations. These caveats should be kept in mind when interpreting the data in this article.
Employment in each STEM subdomain by occupation type
The OEWS program publishes an annual STEM customer dataset based on one definition of STEM that combines the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain and the architecture subdomain but excludes the social science and health subdomains. By this definition, there were nearly 10.2 million STEM jobs in May 2023, representing 6.7 percent of U.S. employment.
Health subdomain
Using the broadest SOCPC definition option that combines all four subdomains, we calculate that May 2023 STEM employment was nearly 20.7 million jobs, representing 13.6 percent of U.S. employment. The difference between the two employment estimates is mainly due to the large size of the health subdomain.8 Health was the largest of the four STEM subdomains, with approximately 10.1 million jobs in May 2023. (See chart 1.)
[1] Occupation type not present in this subdomain.
Note: Occupations that are split between two subdomains or occupation types were assigned to only one subdomain or type to prevent double counting.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
By occupation type, research, development, design, or practitioner occupations—such as physicians, dentists, and therapists—made up 62.1 percent of employment in the health subdomain. Most of the remaining employment in this subdomain (29.8 percent) consisted of health technologist and technician occupations. Managerial occupations and postsecondary teaching occupations made up 5.1 percent and 3.0 percent of health subdomain employment, respectively.
The largest individual occupation in the health subdomain was registered nurses—an occupation in the research, development, design, or practitioner category—with nearly 3.2 million jobs. After registered nurses, the largest occupations in the health subdomain were licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses (630,250) and pharmacy technicians (460,280), which are both technologist and technician occupations, and the managerial occupation medical and health services managers (515,100).
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain
The life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain was slightly smaller than the health subdomain, with about 10.0 million jobs. Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations, including engineers, scientists, and many computer occupations, made up nearly two-thirds of employment in this subdomain. Compared with the health subdomain, technologist and technician occupations made up a smaller share of jobs (18.8 percent). The remaining employment in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain consisted of managerial (8.9 percent), sales (3.7 percent), and postsecondary teaching (2.4 percent) occupations.
The largest occupations in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain were software developers (1.7 million), computer user support specialists (689,700), computer and information systems managers (592,600), and computer systems analysts (498,810). Industrial engineers (332,870) and civil engineers (327,950) were the largest occupations in this subdomain that were not related to computers or information technology. All of these are research, development, design, or practitioner occupations except computer user support specialists (technologist and technician) and computer and information systems managers (managerial).
Social science and architecture subdomains
Compared with these two large subdomains, the social science and architecture subdomains were much smaller. The social science subdomain had employment of 420,830. About 64 percent of these jobs were in research, development, design, or practitioner occupations. Postsecondary teaching occupations made up a much higher share of employment in the social science subdomain than in the other subdomains (28.5 percent). Technologist and technician occupations made up only 7.3 percent of employment in this subdomain, but this estimate excludes the split occupation Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other (19-4099), which was assigned to the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain.
The largest occupations in the social science subdomain were clinical and counseling psychologists (71,730), school psychologists (62,790), and urban and regional planners (42,690), all in the research, development, design, or practitioner category; and postsecondary psychology teachers (40,610), a postsecondary teaching occupation.
The architecture subdomain had employment of only 139,880. Architects, except landscape and naval (a research, development, design, or practitioner occupation) made up 79 percent of these jobs. However, this subdomain contains all or part of only six occupations, and three of them are split occupations that were assigned to a different subdomain, so these results should be interpreted with caution.
Employment in each STEM occupation type by subdomain
Like the subdomains, the STEM occupation types varied greatly in size, with the two largest occupation types making up the majority of STEM employment.
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations was the largest STEM occupation type and made up 64.4 percent of STEM employment, with approximately 13.3 million jobs. Half of research, development, design, or practitioner jobs (6.6 million) were in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, and most of the rest were in the health subdomain. The social science and architecture subdomains combined accounted for only 3.0 percent of employment in research, development, design, or practitioner occupations. (See chart 2.)
[1] Occupation type not present in this subdomain.
Note: Occupations that are split between two subdomains or occupation types were assigned to only one subdomain or type to prevent double counting. Detailed data may not sum to totals because of rounding.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The largest research, development, design, or practitioner occupations were registered nurses (3.2 million) in the health subdomain and software developers (1.7 million) in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain. Computer systems analysts (498,810) and industrial engineers (332,870), both from the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, and pharmacists (331,700) from the health subdomain were also among the largest occupations of this type.
Technologist and technician occupations
Technologist and technician occupations (4.9 million) was the second-largest STEM occupation type. The majority of technologist and technician jobs (61.1 percent) were in the health subdomain. Nearly all of the remaining technologist and technician employment was in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, although this subdomain also includes data for the three technologist and technician occupations that were split with the architecture or social science subdomains.
The largest technologist and technician occupation was computer user support specialists (689,700) from the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain. After computer user support specialists, the largest technologist and technician occupations were licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses (630,250), pharmacy technicians (460,280), and clinical laboratory technologists and technicians (334,380), all in the health subdomain.
Managerial occupations
About 1.4 million STEM jobs were in managerial occupations. Most STEM managerial jobs (63.5 percent) were in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, with the remainder in the health subdomain.9 The largest of the four STEM managerial occupations were computer and information systems managers (592,600) and medical and health services managers (515,100).
Postsecondary teaching occupations
STEM postsecondary teaching occupations had employment of 662,890. Nearly 81 percent of STEM postsecondary teaching jobs were in the health (298,060) or life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology (236,730) subdomains. Although the social science subdomain had the highest concentration of postsecondary teaching jobs of any subdomain, this represented only 18.1 percent of total STEM postsecondary teacher employment. There were only 8,350 postsecondary teaching jobs in the small architecture subdomain.
The largest STEM postsecondary teaching occupations were in the health subdomain: postsecondary health specialties teachers (225,360) and postsecondary nursing instructors and teachers (72,700). After these two occupations, the largest STEM postsecondary teaching occupations were postsecondary biological science teachers (52,050) and postsecondary mathematical science teachers (48,230), both in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, and postsecondary psychology teachers (40,610) from the social science subdomain.
Sales occupations
Sales was the smallest STEM occupation type with 371,120 jobs. Both STEM sales occupations were in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain: wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives of technical and scientific products (311,780) and sales engineers (59,340).
Annual mean wages by STEM subdomain are above average
STEM occupations generally had above-average wages. In May 2023, the annual mean wage for STEM occupations, based on all subdomains and occupation types combined, was $108,330, compared with the annual mean wages of $58,720 for non-STEM occupations and $65,470 for all occupations. Using the narrower STEM definition from the OEWS customer dataset, which excludes the health and social science subdomains, results in an even higher mean wage for STEM occupations of $112,770.
Most individual STEM occupations also had above-average wages. Of the 200 STEM occupations in the broadest definition option, 165 had annual mean wages significantly above the all-occupations mean of $65,470, and only 31 had below-average wages.10
All four STEM subdomains had annual mean wages above the all-occupations average. (See chart 3.)
Chart 3. Annual mean wages by STEM subdomain, May 2023
Subdomain
Annual mean wage
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology
112,960
All STEM occupations
108,330
Health
104,320
Architecture
98,880
Social science
97,150
All occupations
65,470
Note: Occupations that are split between two subdomains were assigned to only one subdomain to prevent double counting.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology ($112,960) was the subdomain with the highest annual mean wage. The highest paying occupations in this subdomain were the subdomain’s three management occupations: computer and information systems managers ($180,720), architectural and engineering managers ($172,290), and natural sciences managers ($169,120). The lowest paying occupations in this subdomain included agricultural technicians ($46,810) and food science technicians ($54,000).
Health subdomain
Health occupations ($104,320) were the second-highest paying subdomain. Although the health subdomain included many of the highest paying occupations overall, such as pediatric surgeons ($449,320) and cardiologists ($423,250), it also contained several of the lowest paying STEM occupations. The lowest paying occupations in this subdomain included dietetic technicians ($38,440), emergency medical technicians ($43,100), and pharmacy technicians ($43,330).
Architecture subdomain
The architecture subdomain had an annual mean wage of $98,880, although this estimate is likely to be affected by the exclusion of architectural managers in the high-paying split occupation Architectural and Engineering Managers (11-9041), as well as the exclusion of workers in two lower paying, split drafter occupations. Postsecondary architecture teachers ($114,900) was the highest paying nonsplit occupation in this subdomain. Architects, except landscape and naval, which accounted for most jobs in this subdomain, had an annual mean wage of $100,400.
Social science subdomain
The social science subdomain had an annual mean wage of $97,150, similar to the annual mean wage for the architecture subdomain. The highest paying occupations in this subdomain were industrial-organizational psychologists ($154,380), postsecondary economics teachers ($133,650), economists ($132,650), and political scientists ($132,020). The lowest paying occupations in the social science subdomain were social science research assistants ($62,370), survey researchers ($66,670), and anthropologists and archeologists ($69,780).
Annual mean wages by STEM occupation type
Four out of five STEM occupation types had annual mean wages above both the U.S. all-occupations average of $65,470 and the average of $108,330 for all STEM occupations combined.
Managerial occupations
The highest paying STEM occupation type was managerial occupations, with an annual mean wage of $161,810. Computer and information systems managers ($180,720) and medical and health services managers ($134,440) were the highest and lowest paying, respectively, of the four STEM managerial occupations. (See chart 4.)
Chart 4. Annual mean wages by STEM occupation type, May 2023
Occupation type
Annual mean wage
Managerial
161,810
Research, development, design, or practitioner
119,940
Sales
116,240
Postsecondary teaching
112,340
All STEM occupations
108,330
All occupations
65,470
Technologist and technician
60,440
Note: Occupations that are split between two occupation types were assigned to only one type to prevent double counting.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations had an annual mean wage of $119,940. The research, development, design, or practitioner group had over 20 occupations with annual mean wages of $200,000 a year or higher; all of these were healthcare practitioners. As noted previously, these included some of the highest paying occupations overall, such as pediatric surgeons ($449,320), as well as other types of physicians, surgeons, and dentists, and nurse anesthetists ($214,200). The lowest paying research, development, design, or practitioner occupations were also in the health subdomain: exercise physiologists ($57,050), recreational therapists ($60,910), and athletic trainers ($61,540).
Sales occupations
STEM sales occupations had an annual mean wage of $116,240, slightly lower than the average wage for the research, development, design, or practitioner group. Both individual STEM sales occupations, sales engineers ($130,550) and wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives of technical and scientific products ($113,520), had wages above the U.S. average of $65,470.
Postsecondary teaching occupations
Postsecondary teaching occupations had an annual mean wage of $112,340. The highest paying STEM postsecondary teaching occupations were postsecondary health specialties teachers ($134,440), postsecondary economics teachers ($133,650), and postsecondary engineering teachers ($120,630). The lowest paying STEM postsecondary teaching occupation was postsecondary nursing instructors and teachers ($86,530), followed by postsecondary social sciences teachers, all other ($91,710) and postsecondary psychology teachers ($93,990).
Technologist and technician occupations
Technologist and technician occupations ($60,440) was the only STEM occupation type with an annual mean wage below the all-occupations mean of $65,470. Of the 31 individual STEM occupations with mean wages significantly below the U.S. average, 28 were technologist and technician occupations.11 The lowest paying technologist and technician occupations were primarily in the health subdomain, including dietetic technicians ($38,440), emergency medical technicians ($43,100), and pharmacy technicians ($43,330). Agricultural technicians ($46,810) was the lowest paying technologist and technician occupation not related to healthcare.
Although most STEM occupations with below-average wages were technologist and technician occupations, about 45 percent of individual STEM technologist and technician occupations had wages that were similar to or higher than the all-occupations average of $65,470, and about 69 percent had wages that were similar to or higher than the average for non-STEM occupations of $58,720. These included the three highest paying STEM technologist and technician occupations: medical dosimetrists ($131,850), nuclear technicians ($97,520), and nuclear medicine technologists ($95,080).
Annual mean wages for the health and the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomains
Although the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain had a higher overall average wage than the health subdomain, this was due partly to differences in the mix of higher and lower paying occupation types, rather than to consistently higher wages for all occupation types. Of the four occupation types present in both subdomains, the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain had higher wages for only two: managerial occupations and technologist and technician occupations. Chart 5 shows wages for the two largest subdomains broken down by occupation type. (See chart 5.)
Chart 5. Annual mean wages for the health subdomain and life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, by occupation type, May 2023
Occupation type
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology
[1] Occupation type not present in this subdomain.
Note: Occupations that are split between two subdomains or occupation types were assigned to only one subdomain or type to prevent double counting.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Managerial and technologist and technician occupations
The annual mean wage for managerial occupations was over $43,000 higher in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain ($177,520) than in the health subdomain ($134,440). The life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain had a higher average wage and a larger share of employment in this high-paying occupational type. (See chart 1.) The life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain also had both a higher average wage for technologist and technician occupations and a smaller employment share of this relatively low-paying occupation type. Both of these factors contributed to the higher overall mean wage for this subdomain.
Postsecondary teaching and research, development, design, or practitioner occupations
On the other hand, the annual mean wage for postsecondary teaching occupations was about $17,770 higher in the health subdomain ($122,760) than in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain ($104,990). However, postsecondary teaching occupations made up 3.0 percent of employment or less in both subdomains, limiting the effect of this wage difference on the overall subdomain means. (See chart 1.) The health subdomain also had a higher mean wage for research, development, design, or practitioner occupations, offset by a somewhat lower share of employment in this occupation type.
Annual mean wages for research, development, design, or practitioner and technologist and technician occupations
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations had higher annual mean wages than technologist and technician occupations in all three subdomains for which data were available for both occupation types. Wage differences between the two occupation types ranged from $37,150 in the social science subdomain to $66,750 in the health subdomain. The relatively large difference in the health subdomain reflects the fact that this subdomain contains both the highest paying practitioner occupations and many of the lowest paying technologist and technician occupations. Chart 6 provides annual mean wages for the two largest occupation types, broken down by subdomain. (See chart 6.)
Chart 6. Annual mean wages for research, development, design, or practitioner occupations and technologist and technician occupations, by subdomain, May 2023
Subdomain
Research, development, design, or practitioner
Technologist and technician
All occupations
119,940
60,440
Life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology
[1] Occupation type not present in this subdomain.
Note: Occupations that are split between two subdomains or occupation types were assigned to only one subdomain or type to prevent double counting.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Research, development, design, or practitioner occupations had higher wages in the two larger subdomains than in the two smaller ones. This occupation type earned an average of $123,700 in the health subdomain and $117,660 in the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain, compared with $99,520 in the social science subdomain and $97,860 in the architecture subdomain. Of the three subdomains with wage estimates for technologist and technician occupations, the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain ($65,990) was the highest paying, and the health subdomain ($56,950) was the lowest paying.
Conclusion
Using the broadest SOCPC definition option, STEM occupations accounted for about 20.7 million jobs in May 2023. Of the four STEM subdomains identified by the SOCPC, the two largest combined made up over 97 percent of STEM employment. These were the health subdomain, with employment of 10.1 million, and the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain (10.0 million). The two remaining subdomains, social science (420,830) and architecture (139,880), were much smaller, although estimates for both subdomains, especially architecture, were affected by the exclusion of several split occupations that were assigned to the larger life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain.
Most STEM jobs (13.3 million) were in research, development, design, or practitioner occupations, followed by technologist and technician occupations (4.9 million). The three remaining STEM occupation types combined—managerial, postsecondary teaching, and sales—contained about 2.4 million jobs.
STEM occupations had an annual mean wage of $108,330 for all subdomains and occupation types combined, more than $40,000 higher than the U.S. average wage of $65,470. All four STEM subdomains and four out of five STEM occupation types had above-average wages. Technologists and technicians ($60,440) was the only STEM occupation type with an annual mean wage below the U.S. average for all occupations.
This Beyond the Numbers article was prepared by Audrey Watson, economist from the Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. E-mail: Watson.audrey@bls.gov.
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Suggested citation:
Audrey Watson, “Employment and wages for alternate definitions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations,”
Beyond the Numbers: Employment & Unemployment, vol. 14, no. 6 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2025),
https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-14/stem-alternate-definitions.htm
1 According to May 2023 data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, more than 85 percent of STEM occupations had annual mean wages above the U.S. average of $65,470. Occupations typically requiring at least an associate’s degree for entry made up 92.7 percent of STEM employment, compared with only 31.5 percent of overall employment. These percentages are based on a specific definition of STEM used in the OEWS customer dataset described in note 4 below. Typical entry-level educational requirements are assigned to each occupation by the BLS Employment Projections (EP) program; see the EP education and training data page for more information.
2 According to the BLS 2023–33 employment projections, STEM employment is projected to increase by 10.4 percent from 2023 to 2033, compared with 3.6 percent for non-STEM employment and 4.0 percent for employment in all occupations combined. Details of the STEM definition used for these projections are provided in note 4.
4 The OEWS program produces annual employment and wage estimates for approximately 830 occupations based on the SOC system. OEWS data are based on a survey of 1.1 million business establishments (employers) collected over a 3-year period. OEWS national, state, and area data for all industries combined and national data by industry or ownership are available from the main OEWS data page. For more information about the OEWS program, see the OEWS documentation and frequently asked questions.
The OEWS STEM customer dataset provides employment and wage estimates for aggregations of STEM and non-STEM occupations at the national, state, and metropolitan and nonmetropolitan area levels, and at the national level for North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) sectors and 4-digit industries. The STEM definition used in this dataset consists of computer and mathematical, architecture and engineering, and life and physical science occupations, as well as managerial and postsecondary teaching occupations related to these functional areas and sales occupations requiring scientific or technical knowledge at the postsecondary level. This definition corresponds to the combination of the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain and the architecture subdomain in the SOCPC guidance.
Because it uses all occupation types and incorporates the architecture subdomain, this definition resolves all of the occupation type splits and 3 of the 4 subdomain splits described in detail in note 7. The remaining subdomain split, Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other (19-4099), is split with the social science subdomain. Assuming that employment in this occupation is distributed approximately proportionally to employment in other life, physical, and social science technologist and technician occupations, the majority of workers in this occupation are likely to be life and physical science technicians rather than social science technicians. Therefore, it is included in the OEWS customer dataset.
5 The four subdomains are further aggregated into two domains: the science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology domain consists of the social science and life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomains combined, and the science- and engineering-related domain consists of the architecture and health subdomains combined.
7 There are four SOC occupations split between two subdomains. Architectural and Engineering Managers (11-9041), Architectural and Civil Drafters (17-3011), and Drafters, All Other (17-3019) are all split between the architecture subdomain and the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain. Life, Physical, and Social Science Technicians, All Other (19-4099) is split between the social science subdomain and the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain. All four of these occupations were assigned to the larger life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain based on the relative employment in other occupations for each subdomain involved in the split.
Four additional SOC occupations are split between the research, development, design, or practitioner occupation type and the technologist and technician occupation type: Computer Occupations, All Other (15-1299); Mathematical Science Occupations, All Other (15-2099); Health Information Technologists and Medical Registrars (29-9021); and Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Workers, All Other (29-9099). These categories were assigned to the higher skilled research, development, design, or practitioner group based on the SOC classification principles and coding guidelines, which state that workers who could be coded in more than one occupation should be coded in the one that requires the higher skill.
8 The health subdomain consists of healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (29-0000), which is the larger of the two SOC healthcare groups and contains occupations like physicians, dentists, nurses, therapists, and health technologists and technicians. Healthcare support occupations (31-0000), such as nursing assistants and home health and personal care aides, make up the second, smaller healthcare occupational group and are not included in the SOCPC STEM definition options.
9 As noted above, data for the split architectural and engineering managers occupation were assigned to the life and physical science, engineering, mathematics, and information technology subdomain for these estimates. There are no managerial occupations in the social science subdomain.
10 Mean wages for the remaining four occupations were not significantly different from U.S. all-occupations mean.
11 The exceptions were the three lowest paying research, development, design, or practitioner occupations: exercise physiologists, recreational therapists, and athletic trainers.
United States Department of Labor
