Pittsburgh One Of Nation's Top Cities For STEM Fields: Study

PITTSBURGH, PA - Who needs the Silicon Valley for those seeking jobs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics professions? A new study has ranked Pittsburgh as the nation’s third-best city for those in STEM fields.

Financial data website WalletHub compared the hundred largest metro areas in 17 metrics to determine the best markets for STEM professionals. The data set ranged from per-capita job opening for STEM graduates to annual median wage growth for STEM jobs to projected demand for STEM workers by 2020.

What makes the findings significant is that STEM careers today pay higher salaries and have far fewer instances of unemployment compared with other types of positions. STEM workers in 2015 earned an average annual wage of $87,570, nearly double the national average of $45,700 for all non-STEM jobs, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Here’s how Pittsburgh ranked in various key categories (the higher the ranking, the better):

• Unemployment rate for holders of bachelor’s degrees of higher: 1

• Quality of engineering universities: 6

• Job openings for STEM graduates per capita: 9

• Annual median wage growth for STEM workers: 20

• Math performance: 30

• Percent of workforce in STEM professions: 33

• STEM employment growth: 35

• Annual median wage growth for STEM workers, adjusted for cost of living: 39

• Projected demand for STEM jobs by 2020: 50

The nation’s top 10 cities for STEM jobs:
1. Seattle
2. Boston
3. Pittsburgh
4. Austin
5. Minneapolis
6. Madison
7. Salt Lake City
8. Springfield
9. Chicago
10. Atlanta

Image via Pixabay.