BostInno
Is Boston One of the Best Metro Areas for STEM Professionals? You Bet
By: Lucia Maffei
Boston keeps ranking high in job market-related surveys, not rarely coming at the very top. In November last year, a global study released by a German startup ranked Beantown as the No. 1 city for job opportunities and growth—in the entire world.
Now yet another survey is giving Boston a silver medal as one of the best homes in the U.S. for a growing sector of the economy: Science, technology, engineering and math professions, which grew at over twice the rate that non-STEM jobs did between 2009 and 2015.
A new study released on Tuesday by personal finance website WalletHub placed Boston on a shiny second place in the ranking of best cities for STEM jobs in 2019—surpassed only by Seattle. Two more Massachusetts cities also ranked in the top 20, with Springfield coming in 14th place and Worcester in 15th place.
The study examined the 100 most populated U.S. metro areas across three key dimensions (“Professional Opportunities”, “STEM-Friendliness” and “Quality of Life”). In the evaluation of a single area, the report also took into account 17 variables including not only each area’s share of engineering schools, but also the number of tech meetups per capita.
Here’s a summary of Boston’s performance across the whole study:
STEM Job Market in Boston-Cambridge-Newton (1=Best, 50=Avg.)
4th – % of Workforce in STEM
42nd – STEM Employment Growth
1st – Math Performance
23rd – Quality of Engineering Universities
15th – Job Openings for STEM Graduates per Capita
1st – Unemployment Rate for Holders of Bachelor’s Degrees or Higher
2nd – Projected Demand for STEM Jobs by 2020
