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Data Scientist Heads '50 Best Jobs in America' List from Careers Site

• By David Ramel
• January 24, 2017

Shortly after CNNMoney deemed mobile app developer the "Best Job in America," careers firm Glassdoor Inc. has come out with its own ranking, which pegs data scientist as No. 1 on its list of the "50 Best Jobs in America for 2017."

Like the CNNMoney report, Glassdoor takes into account more than just salaries in arriving at its new ranking for 2017. Using data from the site's thousands of help wanted ads, user reviews and salary postings, it also factors in the number of job openings and overall job satisfaction rating.

Using those metrics, data scientist received an overall job score of 4.8 out of 5, making it the top job in Glassdoor's annual ranking for the second straight year. With a $110,000 median base salary, it scored 4.4 in job satisfaction, with 4,184 listed job openings.

Also like the CNNMoney report, data scientist was named the No. 1 job in the country despite other positions listing higher median base salaries, such as physician, which weighs in at $200,000 for that metric.

Not that data scientists are hurting in the money department, with some help wanted ads for that position posting estimated salaries of more than $180,000 in the face of a problematic skills shortage that has lasted for years.

Tech- and developer-related jobs overall fared well in the new report, with the remaining top 10 jobs listed as:

• DevOps engineer
• Data engineer
• Tax manager
• Analytics manager
• HR manager
• Database administrator
• Strategy manager
• UX designer
• Solutions architect

"This report reinforces that the best jobs are highly-skilled and are staying ahead of the growing trend toward workplace automation," said Glassdoor exec Dr. Andrew Chamberlain in a news release yesterday. "Nearly half the list is comprised of jobs within the fast growing technology, healthcare, and finance industries. In particular for tech jobs, companies across all industries are hiring workers for these needed positions, including employers in healthcare, finance, manufacturing, retail and more. Any organization today with a mobile app, Web presence or digitized data are struggling to fill jobs like data scientists, software engineers and mobile developers."

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