The current top of this ranking is a surprising mix: Dialysis Technician and Home Health Aide tie for #1, followed by EMTs, PAs, and LPN/LVN roles. When pay, growth, ROI, AI exposure, speed to start, and stress are weighted together, the winners are not just the highest-paid jobs.
Editorial Team
Most health care career advice optimizes for one variable, usually salary. That misses the tradeoffs people actually live with: debt, time to entry, schedule quality, automation pressure, and long-term demand. A role can pay well and still be a poor fit if one dimension collapses.
This page combines BLS wages and growth, O*NET task data, education-cost inputs, and stress modeling into one composite score. Careers are compared on six dimensions and weighted into an overall rank, so a role only rises to the top when it performs across multiple categories.
The current leaderboard shows that balance beats prestige. Fast-entry clinical roles, advanced practice roles, and a few specialist tracks all appear near the top because each wins on a different mix of speed, pay, and resilience.
Bubble size = overall score. Top-right quadrant = high AI resilience + high growth (most future-proof).
Ranked by composite score across pay, ROI, AI resilience, growth, speed, and work-life balance.
Sortable table with overall scores, AI resilience, growth rates, and education requirements.
| Rank ↑ | Career ↕ | Score ↕ | AI Score ↕ | Growth ↕ | Education ↕ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | Dialysis Technician | 64 | N/A | 5.0% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#2 | Home Health Aide | 64 | 31 | 17.4% | High School Diploma | View Details |
#3 | Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) | 63 | 63 | 5.1% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#4 | General Surgeon | 59 | N/A | 3.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#5 | Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) / Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) | 59 | 47 | 4.7% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#6 | EKG/ECG Technician | 59 | 31 | 5.6% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#7 | Physician Assistant | 59 | 42 | 28.0% | Master's Degree | View Details |
#8 | Paramedic | 59 | 60 | 5.1% | Associate Degree | View Details |
#9 | Community Health Worker | 58 | 31 | 11.2% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#10 | Physical Therapist Assistant | 58 | 54 | 14.2% | Associate Degree | View Details |
#11 | Emergency Medicine Physician | 56 | 43 | 3.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#12 | Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) | 56 | 51 | 9.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#13 | Medical Assistant | 56 | 27 | 14.8% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
#14 | Nurse Practitioner | 56 | 43 | 40.0% | Master's Degree | View Details |
#15 | Anesthesiologist | 55 | 42 | 3.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#16 | Orthopedic Surgeon | 55 | 38 | 3.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#17 | Diagnostic Medical Sonographer | 55 | 32 | 10.2% | Associate Degree | View Details |
#18 | Ultrasound Technician | 55 | 32 | 10.2% | Associate Degree | View Details |
#19 | Internal Medicine Physician | 55 | 40 | 3.0% | Doctoral Degree | View Details |
#20 | Phlebotomist | 55 | 34 | 7.5% | Postsecondary Certificate | View Details |
The overall score is a weighted composite of six independently calculated metrics: pay score (20%), ROI score (20%), AI resilience score (20%), job growth score (15%), speed score (15%), and stress score (10%). Each metric is normalized to a 0-100 scale before weighting. Pay uses BLS OEWS median salary data; ROI divides 20-year net earnings by total education cost; AI resilience analyzes ONET work activity profiles for automation susceptibility; job growth uses BLS 2024-34 employment projections; speed measures months from enrollment to employment; stress uses ONET work context data.