How employable are CS majors?

CS majors are extremely employable with high average starting salaries for a variety of jobs titles with very high expected growth in the number employees required to fill those jobs. According to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, Computer Science jobs are ranked #1 and #2 on ther list of Hoosier Hot 50 jobs, so CS majors will be in demand locally in Indiana as well as more broadly in the United States.

See the ACM Computing Careers website for more information about the kinds of careers and specializations available and how a major in computer science fits in with other majors in the broader field of computing.

In 2006, Money Magazine rated "Software Engineer" the number 1 job in their list of Top 10 Best Jobs. At number 7 on the list was "computer/IT analyst," also a job that a computer science degree will prepare you for. This ranking included factor such as pay, growth, and job stress. A different list from CNN and CareerBuilder.com focusing exclusively on pay and growth lists

Computer Systems Software Engineer, $81,140 as the best paying
Computer Applications Software Engineer, $76,310 at number 2
Computer Systems Analyst, $67,520, at number 6
Database Administrator, $61,950, at number 7
and Network Systems and Data Communication Analyst, $61,250 at number 9.

Fully half of the top 10 paying jobs are available to computer science majors.

A recent (August 2007) MSNBC article Where will the jobs be in 2012 lists the 10 fastest growing jobs which are almost entirely either computer science related or in the healtcare industry (going back to the original data source items 11 and 12 were CS related too). The article has an interesting companion piece Top 10 hot jobs of 2012 which speculates on what will be the fast growing jobs in a few years.

A recent (2007) MSN/CareerBuilder article describes the top 10 paying college majors ranked by entry-level salaries. Computer Science is listed 5^th at $53,396. Leading the list was Chemical Engineering at $59,361 and Computer Engineering at $56,201. Lower down on the list was Management of Information Systems at $47,648. The source of this information was from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The NACE report is also quoted by the Computing Research Association which details the inflation adjusted long term growth in inital salaries for computer science majors.

Business 2.0 Magazine recently rated "Computer Programmer" as the #1 "Hottest Job", they've also listed "Senior Database Administrator" as one of the jobs with the hottest (rapidly inreasing) salaries at $93,300. Finally, their article on "The new new careers" describes "Information Engineer" with a salary range of $70,000-$120,000.

A 2007 article in CIO Insight entitled Demand for IT Jobs Will Soar Through 2016 points out that the job title of "Network systems and data communication analyst" is the fastest growing occupation and that "computer software application engineer" is the fourth fastest growing. Also in the top 25 are "computer systems analyst," "database administrator," and "computer systems software engineers." While "computer programming" jobs are likely to shrink in numbers, most people with such a job title do not have a 4 year degree and few of our graduates hold a position with that title. Computer programming is a fundamental skill CS teaches, but not a career for most of our students.

Another recent CIO Insight article The Hottest IT Management Jobs Today and Into 2008, lists suggests that web managment, security management, and managment of web security are all potentially very high paying careers with "Web Security Managers" averaging $121,000" per year, and "Web Systems Managers" or "IT Security Managers" both averaging $108,000 per year.

Many of these studies get their data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes an Occupational Outlook Handbook which describes the expected pay rates and job growth for many different job titles that computer science majors may have after graduation:

Another major study of employment by college graduates looks at average salaries 1 year after graduation, 5 years after graduation, and 10 years after graduation. The study followed students who graduated in 1993 and found that 10 years after graduation, computer science students were the second highest paid major at $74,600, behind only engineering majors who were paid $74,900. The next highest categories were business and management at $65,900 and health at $65,000.