16% of all new wages in the U.S. are in computer science
11% of all job openings in the U.S. are in computing categories, and these jobs account for 16% of all new wages. Computing is the second largest occupation category in the U.S. when it comes to total new wages, just behind Management Occupations (which include software management positions) and just ahead of Healthcare and Practitioner Occupations.
Here’s how we calculated this:
First, we looked at the average count of new jobs per occupational category over the past 6 months. According to the Conference Board, there were 5,130,483 help wanted online ads in March of 2016. Of these job openings, 566,466 or 11% were in the SOC-15 computer and mathematical science categories* in the Standard Occupational Classification system.
Next, we looked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data on mean salaries. For example, the average salary across all occupations is $48,320. The average salary across computing jobs (the SOC 15 category) is $86,170.
For each category, we multiplied the number of job openings times the average salary for the category to estimate the total new wages in that category. Looking at 6 months worth of data, 16.2% of all new wages are in the computing fields.
This category of jobs is also growing faster than other fields, and so we expect the number to grow. The average “demand rate” – online ads divided by current employment – is 14.8% for computing categories, and 3.8% on average across all jobs.
Meanwhile, in 2014, there were only 42,969 bachelor’s degrees earned in computer science, which was 2.45% of all bachelor’s degrees.
It’s no surprise that a computer science major is the best-paying college degree, but why aren’t more students studying computer science in university? One reason is because students don’t even hear about this field in grades K-12, despite evidence that early exposure is highly correlated to majoring in CS.
The solution we propose is for schools to teach computer science in grades K-12. And 90% of parents agree.
* Note: Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) category 15 excludes computer managers, computer hardware engineers, and postsecondary computer science teachers, which are very big wage categories. Also, SOC 15 includes mathematical science occupations (which are typically less than 4% of the total jobs in that category and thus <1% of the overall picture).
Additional caveat: At Code.org we’re computer scientists, not labor economists. We welcome feedback on the basic approach behind our calculations.
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