Fastest Growing Jobs in America

If you want a clear read on where the United States labor market is headed, start with the jobs growing the fastest, not just the jobs that are "hot" on social media. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects total employment will rise by about 5.2 million jobs from 2024 to 2034. One lesson from the BLS projections is that job growth is not a single leaderboard; it is two different scoreboards. The "fastest-growing" list highlights occupations with the biggest percentage gains, often driven by new infrastructure buildouts or rapidly scaling service models. The "most new jobs" list highlights occupations that will require enormous hiring volume, often because they sit at the center of essential services like healthcare, logistics, food service, and the day-to-day operation of the economy. Many high-volume roles are not the fastest by percentage, but they may offer more openings, more geographic flexibility, and more entry pathways. The BLS projections describe an economy that is simultaneously aging, electrifying, and digitizing.

On a percentage basis, the single fastest-growing job in the U.S. is wind turbine service technician, projected to grow about 50% from 2024 to 2034. Close behind is solar photovoltaic (PV) installer, projected to grow about 42% over the same period. These roles are expanding because the physical energy system is changing: more wind and solar capacity means more equipment to install, monitor, repair, and maintain. BLS points out that, while wind techs and solar installers are growing very quickly, the two occupations combined are projected to add fewer than 20,000 jobs over the decade (high growth rates off relatively small baselines). In other words, the fastest growing titles point to where capacity is being built, and the larger clean energy ecosystem indicates why those technical pathways are likely to persist.

The macro-reality of an aging population, chronic disease prevalence, and long-term care needs ripples outward into clinical roles, allied health roles, and the management infrastructure that supports care delivery. Healthcare's growth shows up both in the fastest-growing list and in the "most new jobs" list, which is often a better proxy for how many people the system will need to hire. BLS projects that nurse practitioner jobs will grow about 40% from 2024 to 2034, placing the role among the very fastest-growing occupations nationally. That growth reflects a basic supply-demand mismatch: more patients and persistent constraints in primary care capacity. The healthcare story also includes roles that scale services more affordably and expand access without requiring a physician pipeline. Physician assistants are projected to grow about 20%. Physical therapist assistants and occupational therapy assistants are projected to grow about 22% and 19%, respectively - growth that tracks with rehabilitation needs, outpatient expansion, and the reality that functional health and mobility are central to aging well. Then there is the job that best illustrates the difference between percent growth and total hiring volume: home health and personal care aides. This occupation is projected to grow about 17%, but it is also projected to add roughly 739,800 new jobs, the largest numeric increase of any occupation. That combination reflects long-term demographic pressure plus a care model shift toward aging in place, home-based services, and community care.

The most prominent technology roles on the fastest-growing list are data scientists (about 34% growth) and information security analysts (about 29% growth). BLS directly links this cluster to two enterprise facts: organizations have more data than ever, and they are under increasing pressure to convert it into decisions, products, and automation. For data scientists specifically, BLS expects growth to stem from increased demand for data-driven decision-making as the volume of data - and the potential uses for it - continues to expand. Cybersecurity is a similar story of structural demand. BLS points to "the frequency and severity of cyberattacks and data breaches" as a driver of demand for information security analysts. Even as AI changes how security teams operate, this risk-pressure dynamic does not disappear; it shifts the mix of tasks. Reporting in early January 2026 noted that companies are using AI tools to improve security efficiency, but also underscored that human expertise remains important for judgment and adaptability as threats evolve. That combination of automation of repetitive work plus escalating adversarial complexity helps explain why the occupation can remain on a strong growth trajectory even as tooling improves.

The job sectors are growing quickly because they sit at the intersection of long-term demographic reality and structural economic change. An aging population is reshaping healthcare, while the transition to cleaner energy is creating entirely new technical career paths tied to how the country powers itself. The explosive growth of data, artificial intelligence, and digital risk is making analytical and cybersecurity roles foundational rather than optional. When taken together, these trends suggest that job growth over the next decade will favor work that either supports essential human needs or enables complex systems to operate more efficiently.