4 ms·

I think pay is also a factor. IT is listed as the third-best paying job in India [1]. In the USA, it's not even in the top 10 [2]. In the UK, it barely scrapes

• koolba 10y ago
  The US News article has eight different medical professions in the top ten. It's rounded out with Psychiatrist as number nine (which I'd argue is medical as well) and "Chief Executive" as number ten. If you consolidate nine of them as "Medical", I bet IT, or some variant of it, would be in the top ten.
  • vinay427 10y ago
    > Psychiatrist as number nine (which I'd argue is medical as well) No argument needed. In the US, psychiatrists are fully-licensed physicians.
  • daviddavis 10y ago
    Scroll down a bit further and they have a list of the top 10 non-medical professions. IT makes it on the list at #7 with "Computer and Information Systems Managers". Still not great I'd argue.
  • sjg007 10y ago
    Yep.... if you are a US citizen, for the money, go to med school, everything else is overrated.
    • Declanomous 10y ago
      A medical degree costs a lot more than the degree necessary to work in IT. I don't have the report off the top of my head, but doctors don't reach salary parity with their peers who got bachelors degrees until their mid-40s. Edit: I'm talking about lifetime earnings parity, not yearly parity. If you are marking $85k in IT as a 27 year old, you are way ahead of someone who starts making $175k at the age of 35 and has $250k in debt.
      • geodel 10y ago
        Though I do not have doctor friends in US so I may be wrong but I have heard from many that even family doctors here start with 200K pa almost anywhere in US. Now apart from top end software/banking most would not reach that number by end of career in software/IT.
        • Declanomous 10y ago
          That's true, but you can easily reach a six figure salary in software or IT, and you'll essentially have been in the workforce for twice as long as the doctor if you retire at 65. How much you make really depends on your specialty as well. Cosmetic surgeons, anesthesiologists and radiologists make a lot more money than general practitioners. Pediatric anything does not make much money. Cosmetic surgeons make an absolute boatload of money though. Like, an absurd amount. A guy I play pickup basketball with went from being a pediatric surgeon to a cosmetic surgeon, and he said it almost feels criminal how much more money he makes now.
          • sjg007 10y ago
            That 6 figure IT salary is only recent AND doctors make 2-3x that.
            • kls 10y ago
              My wife is a general medical provider, by the time we pay liability, malpractice, etc. etc. we end up making about the same. General practice (when compensating for overhead) provides about the same level income as senior level IT. Now granted that is out the door and IT you need at least a decade in to get to that salary but when balanced out for schooling required, you hit the same level of compensation at about the same time in life.
• fjdlwlv 10y ago
  You are misinterpreting the sources.[1] isn't sorted by Jon, it bundles many jobs in one sector into each section, vs [2] which ranks very detailed subcategories