Looking For Work? Check Out Jobs In This Sector

Graduates planning on entering the workforce within the next decade may want to think about one word: data.

A new analysis by Department of Commerce economists forecasts that jobs requiring data analysis and processing will grow at a 14.5 percent rate from 2012 to 2022, faster than the 10.4 percent projected growth for non-data jobs. In all, that's about 3.9 million data jobs.

"They pay well, have low unemployment rates, and are expanding across many industries," according to the analysis published by David Langdon and William Hawk, economists at the Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration. Typically, the data jobs pay more than $40 an hour.

But like the majority of the best jobs in fast-growing industries, the data jobs will require more than a high school education.

The fastest growing data job flagged by Langdon and Hawk is physician assistant, which had a 2012 median annual wage of $90,930 and typically requires a master's degree, according to the earlier rankings from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The second-fastest growing data job on the list is information security analyst, which typically requires a bachelor's degree and had a 2012 median wage of $86,170. The third on the list is market research analyst or marketing specialist, which also usually needs a bachelor's degree and drew a a wage of $60,300 in 2012, according to the BLS calculations based on the Occupational Employment Statistics program.

"For these top data occupations, two-thirds or more of the workers have at least a college degree; in comparison about one-third of workers across all occupations have a bachelor's degree or higher," stated a March report on the same topic from Department of Commerce economists. That report also noted that data-intensive industries can be found nationwide but are most prevalent in Washington, D.C.; Virginia; Massachusetts; Maryland; and Connecticut.

"These numbers are impressive, but may well underestimate the future importance of data occupations to the American economy," Langdon and Hawk wrote in a blog post published Monday on the Economics and Statistics website. "As more occupations involve analyzing data or information, processing information, and interacting with computers (the activities used to define data jobs), these numbers will continue to rise."

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