While a traditional four-year college degree often results in higher wages and quicker career mobility, it’s not for everybody. And that’s OK because there are also good opportunities for workers who never completed college — careers that offer good pay and low unemployment.
Below is CareerBuilder’s list of the hottest in-demand jobs for 2018 that do not require a college degree, comprised of occupations where the number of job postings each month outpace the number of people they actually hire. The list includes other data points, such as job growth and salary.
“When people think of skills gaps, they typically think of high-skill tech or health care jobs that require advanced degrees,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder and co-author of The Talent Equation. “The reality is those gaps are being felt across all types of roles, including a wide range of jobs that don’t necessarily require a college education. What employers will look for first is whether candidates have the core competencies to fill their open positions, and those competencies can be developed in different ways outside of a formal classroom.”
The study is based on data from Emsi, CareerBuilder’s labor market analysis arm, which aggregates information from multiple national and local employment resources. CareerBuilder and Emsi looked at the average number of people hired per month in more than 700 occupations from January 2017 to August 2017 and compared that to the number of job postings for each occupation (aggregated from online job sites for the same period).
Among occupations that do not typically require a college education and have the largest gap between job openings and hires are the following:
Occupation
|
Average Monthly Unique Job Postings
|
Average Monthly Hires
|
Gap Between Postings and Hires
|
Job Growth 2012-2017
|
Total Employment in 2017
|
Median Hourly Earnings
|
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers
|
1,662,847
|
107,845
|
1,555,003
|
174,188
|
1,966,281
|
$19.26
|
First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
|
276,477
|
85,445
|
192,033
|
60,541
|
1,428,776
|
$17.10
|
Food Service Managers
|
60,718
|
20,007
|
40,710
|
22,240
|
285,765
|
$19.82
|
Insurance Sales Agents
|
57,103
|
17,183
|
39,920
|
51,659
|
585,302
|
$23.17
|
Computer User Support Specialists
|
58,569
|
34,283
|
24,287
|
85,704
|
700,574
|
$23.81
|
Social and Human Service Assistants
|
38,869
|
19,967
|
18,902
|
51,885
|
400,143
|
$15.33
|
Real Estate Sales Agents
|
18,169
|
9,238
|
8,931
|
11,828
|
390,490
|
$17.92
|
Pharmacy Technicians
|
26,808
|
20,726
|
6,082
|
36,929
|
409,870
|
$14.87
|
Medical Assistants
|
28,641
|
26,239
|
2,402
|
72,974
|
664,087
|
$15.18
|
Tax Preparers
|
6,695
|
6,108
|
588
|
3,532
|
98,983
|
$19.60
|
Photo by Mia Baker on Unsplash
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