1. Meaningful Jobs
2. Methodology

The Most and Least
Meaningful Jobs

Job Meaning Tool

• Explore the Tool

Lists

• Most Meaningful Jobs
• Least Meaningful Jobs
• Jobs That Make the World Worse
• Full List

Features

• The Meaning of Job Meaning
• Teacher Pay Versus Job Meaning
• Methodology

Meaningful Jobs Methodology

Overview

PayScale provides percentage of workers reporting high job meaning, national median pay, and percentage of workers reporting high job satisfaction for both detailed and major job groupings (O*NET). Data was obtained from 2.7 million people who took the PayScale survey between 6 /11/2013 and 6/11/2015.

Definitions

Median Pay: The median pay is the national median (50th Percentile) annual total cash compensation. Half the people doing the job earn more than the median, while half earn less.

Total Cash Compensation (TCC): TCC combines base annual salary or hourly wage, bonuses, profit sharing, tips, commissions, and other forms of cash earnings, as applicable. It does not include equity (stock) compensation, cash value of retirement benefits, or value of other non-cash benefits (e.g., healthcare). 

Job Category (O*NET Breadth 60): These are the 23 major job groupings defined by the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) (https://www.onetcenter.org) based on the least detailed level of the SOC Code taxonomy.

Job Category (O*NET Breadth 30): These are the 840 detailed job groupings defined by the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) (https://www.onetcenter.org) based on the most detailed level of the SOC Code taxonomy.

Percent High Satisfaction: This is the percentage of respondents with the given job who answered "Extremely satisfied" or "Fairly satisfied" to the question, "How satisfied are you in your job?" 

Percent High Meaning: This is the percentage of respondents with the given job who answered "Very much so" or "Yes" to the question, "Does your work make the world a better place?"

% Who Believe Their Job Makes the World a Worse Place: This is the percentage of respondents with the given job who answered "My job makes the world a worse place" to the question, "Does your job make the world a better place?". (Note that even though workers in these jobs more frequently feel their job makes the world a worse place than workers in other jobs, the percentage of employees who feel that way are still relatively small.)