The good news is that if you have a degree in science, tech, engineering or math, you have a better than decent shot at landing a job in Seattle. The metro area landed No. 6 in WalletHub’s recent poll on “2015’s Best and Worst Metro Areas for STEM Professionals,” which looked at 100 cities across the U.S.
The bad news? We come in 40th for annual median wages for workers, adjusted for cost of living. We’ve got good company here: Other hotbeds of innovation, including San Francisco and New York, also scored poorly in this category.
These findings, including employment growth, job openings for new grads and projected job openings in 2018, follow up WalletHub’s “2015’s Best and Worst Cities to Find a Job” report, in which Seattle came in No. 1 overall. For STEM professionals, the cities that beat out Seattle include Houston, Austin, Texas, Raleigh, N.C., Denver, and Omaha, Neb.
According to WalletHub, the “Department of Commerce estimates [that] STEM professions will expand 1.7 times faster than non-STEM occupations between 2008 and 2018…The average annual wage for all STEM jobs was $79,640 in 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.”
Below, key findings for Seattle:
- 3rd – % of All Workers in STEM Jobs
- 8th – STEM Employment Growth
- 36th – STEM High Schools Index
- 40th – Annual Median Wage for STEM Workers (Adjusted for Cost of Living)
- 8th – Annual Median Wage Growth for STEM Workers
- 14th – Job Openings per Capita for STEM Graduates
- 9th – Projected Number of STEM Jobs Needed in 2018
