Data sources

What this site is built from

Five sources, all official. Here's what each covers and where it falls short.

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)

Employment counts and wage percentiles for every occupation, by state and metro area. We use May 2022 through May 2025. Limitation: small state and occupation combinations get suppressed, and wages above roughly $115/hour are top-coded for most occupations.

BLS Employment Projections (2024–2034)

Ten-year national outlook per occupation: projected growth and annual openings.Limitation: national only. State trajectories can differ substantially.

U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (June 2026)

Institution and program-level data: net price, completion, graduate earnings, and debt.Limitation: earnings and debt cover federally-aided students only, and program-level data reports at the 4-digit CIP family, which can group related trades together.

O*NET 30.1

Occupation descriptions, tasks, and related occupations, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.

State licensing boards (50 states)

Our own compiled dataset: license tiers, required hours, exams, fees, renewal, continuing education, and reciprocity, for every state in the trades where we hold a verified record — built exclusively from state board sites, statutes, and administrative rules, with source links and a last-verified date on every record. Limitation: requirements change between our twice-yearly verification sweeps, so the state board linked on each page is always the authority.

BLS and Department of Education data are public domain. We attribute every figure anyway.