The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its fresh employment projections covering 2025 to 2035, and according to businessinsider.com, the list of high-paying roles expected to add the most jobs leans heavily on healthcare, data, and finance. For our readers who lead projects, coach teams, or run agile programs, the picture is less about which job titles will disappear and more about where project demand will quietly heat up next.
The new dataset pairs ten-year growth estimates with May 2025 median wages, drawing on BLS figures and a geometric-mean ranking that combines pay and projected openings. Below is what we make of it, and where project management fits into a workforce that is being reshaped by care delivery, automation, and analytics.
At a glance
- The BLS published new 10-year job projections for the 2025–2035 period on Thursday.
- Business Insider combined those projections with May 2025 median wages to rank 20 high-paying roles.
- Roles were treated as high-paying when typical pay was at least $75,000, with no minimum growth filter.
- Registered nurses are projected to add roughly 194,700 jobs from 2025 to 2035.
- Nurse practitioners are flagged for particularly strong growth, while telemarketers and order clerks are expected to shrink.
What the BLS outlook actually measures
BLS ten-year projections combine economic modeling, demographic shifts, and industry-level forecasts. They estimate how many openings each occupation is likely to add through two channels: net new jobs created and replacements needed when workers retire or change careers. Because healthcare demand is tied to an aging population and chronic-care needs, clinical roles tend to dominate the growth lists, even when pay is not the headline number.
This cycle also leans on a second signal: median wages from May 2025. By filtering for occupations typically paying $75,000 or more, the ranking surfaces roles that combine volume with compensation. Data scientists, accountants and auditors, and nurse practitioners all clear that bar, and they all sit on top of large, recurring project work.
Why this matters for project leaders
Project demand does not move on its own. It travels with the occupations that spend the most on structured change. Hospitals rolling out electronic health records, insurers modernizing claims pipelines, and finance teams replacing legacy ERPs all rely on certified project and program managers. When those occupations grow, the project offices that support them usually grow with them.
The other signal is in the roles that BLS expects to shrink. Telemarketers and order clerks have been on the decline for years as automation absorbs routine transactions. For agile teams, this is a quiet reminder that process-heavy work with clear rules is exactly what software eats first, and exactly where continuous improvement pays off the most.
There is also a leadership lesson in how the rankings were built. The original analysis used a geometric mean of pay and projected growth rather than a simple sum. That is the same trick product teams use when they want to balance reach against depth, or when Scrum Masters balance velocity against quality. Math choices shape what shows up at the top of the board, whether the board is a backlog or a labor forecast.
Our analysis
Who benefits from this outlook? Anyone whose career sits between clinical, financial, and technical domains. Project managers embedded in healthcare IT, revenue cycle, or analytics programs will likely see a steady pipeline of initiatives, because the underlying headcount is rising. Agile coaches working with data teams should expect more requests for delivery frameworks that hold up under regulatory scrutiny, not just speed.
Who faces a tougher road? Vendors and consultancies whose revenue leans on the shrinking occupations. If your roadmap still assumes multi-year call-center transformations, this dataset is a quiet warning shot.
Compared with the previous cycle, the standout shift is how strongly data-centric roles have moved up the pay-and-growth ranking. That mirrors what we have seen in our own audience: data-informed delivery, evidence-based sprint reviews, and metrics that go beyond velocity are now table stakes for serious agile programs.
A practical scenario for agile teams
Say you are a Scrum Master inside a mid-sized hospital system that just hired a wave of nurse practitioners. Your product owner wants to ship a scheduling tool next quarter. The temptation is to treat it like any other internal app. Instead, map the dependency: the new hires need credentialing workflows before they can bill, and billing needs the scheduling data first. Build your first sprint around the credentialing slice, pull a nurse practitioner into the review, and treat clinical safety as a Definition of Done item. That is how a BLS growth signal turns into a backlog order.
What to watch next
Keep an eye on the next BLS update for two numbers: total project-management employment and management analyst openings. If those climb in line with healthcare and analytics roles, expect more demand for hybrid agile-PMP operators who can talk to clinicians and data engineers in the same room. If they stall, the work is shifting toward portfolio leadership rather than team-level facilitation, and your certifications should follow that path.
Key takeaways
- BLS growth projections are a leading indicator for where project budgets will appear, not just where individual jobs will appear.
- Healthcare, data, and finance occupations dominate the high-pay, high-growth list, which is where project management demand tends to cluster.
- Use the same geometric-mean mindset the ranking relies on when balancing speed, quality, and scope on your own backlog.
- Expect agile roles in clinical and analytics environments to keep expanding, while process-heavy transactional work continues to shrink.
- Reskill toward portfolio and program leadership if team-level facilitation demand begins to soften in your sector.
Frequently asked questions
What did the Bureau of Labor Statistics release this week?
New ten-year employment projections covering 2025 to 2035, including growth estimates, replacement needs, and median wages by occupation.
Which occupations are projected to add the most high-paying jobs?
According to businessinsider.com, registered nurses, data scientists, accountants and auditors, and nurse practitioners are near the top of the ranking, with registered nurses expected to add about 194,700 jobs.
How did the ranking decide which roles count as high-paying?
Roles were included if their typical pay was at least $75,000, with no minimum growth threshold, and were sorted using the geometric mean of projected growth and pay.
What does this mean for someone working in agile project management?
Project demand tends to rise with the occupations that spend the most on structured change, so healthcare IT, analytics, and finance programs are likely areas of opportunity.
Which roles are expected to shrink through 2035?
Telemarketers and order clerks are flagged for decline as automation continues to absorb routine, rules-based work.
Source: businessinsider.com