Updated May 2026 · BLS OEWS 2025
Salary Trend Reports
Data-driven reports surfacing the biggest year-over-year salary moves across U.S. occupations — which careers are surging, which are stalling, and where the largest aggregate wage shifts are landing. Currently tracking 2 active reports: 0 improvement, 0 decline, 0 aggregate.
What's Driving 2026 Salary Trends
The dominant pattern in the most recent BLS OEWS release is bifurcation. Healthcare practitioner roles (registered nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) and AI-adjacent technical roles (data scientists, machine learning engineers, security analysts) lead in both wage growth and employment expansion. Trade and hands-on roles (electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians) post above-trend gains driven by tight labor supply. Most office support, retail, and traditional administrative occupations show real wage growth flat or below food and shelter inflation tracked in the CPI.
Geographic story is equally split. Coastal metros remain at the top of nominal pay tables, but cost-of-living-adjusted rankings increasingly favor mid-cost cities in the Sun Belt and Mountain West, where wage growth is matching or beating coastal markets while housing costs lag. Use the COL-adjusted salary guide for the playbook on reading these tables.
Browse All Trend Reports
Highest Paying Jobs
The best-paying occupations in America
Most Underpaid Professions
High-employment jobs with the lowest median pay
How Trend Reports Are Calculated
For every occupation tracked here, we pull the BLS OEWS national median wage for the current release year and the prior release year, match by Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code, and compute the year-over-year percentage change. Improvement reports surface SOC codes with the largest positive moves; decline reports surface the largest negative moves; aggregate reports roll moves up to broader category groupings (15-xxxx Computer/Math, 29-xxxx Healthcare, etc.). When BLS revises a prior-year figure or changes a SOC definition, we annotate the affected report so the comparison stays apples-to-apples. Read the full methodology for the exact computation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a salary trend report?
A salary trend report is a comparison of BLS OEWS percentile wages for an occupation between two release years, surfacing the largest year-over-year movers — both the surging careers (above-inflation wage growth, often driven by labor demand) and the declining ones (where median pay is flat or falling in real terms).
How often are trend reports updated?
BLS publishes new OEWS data once per year, typically in spring for the prior survey year. Trend reports are recomputed each release. The current dataset is the 2025 release, last refreshed May 2026.
Why is salary data lagged?
OEWS is a sample-based federal survey covering about 1.2 million U.S. establishments. Data collection runs over six months, and BLS performs validation and publication review before releasing the file. The result: published wages typically lag the calendar year by 4–10 months. For a more current — but less rigorous — read, see private sources like Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and Indeed Hiring Lab.
What drives the biggest year-over-year salary moves?
Surging occupations typically combine three signals: tight labor supply (low unemployment in the field), a structural demand shift (a new technology, regulatory change, or demographic trend), and lagged credential supply (training programs that have not yet expanded to fill the gap). Declining occupations usually reflect either oversupply of new graduates or substitution by automation.
Where does this trend data come from?
Every wage figure is sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program at bls.gov/oes — public domain data covering all major U.S. occupations. Year-over-year changes compare matched SOC codes across release years; reports note when the underlying SOC definitions changed (which can artificially distort one-year shifts).
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025 release. Public domain. See bls.gov/oes. Inflation comparisons use the BLS CPI.
Last refreshed 2026-05-21 · 2 reports tracked.