Best Jobs Not Behind a Desk: Updated

This is an update to a book I wrote a few years back for JIST Publishing, featuring occupations that do not chain you to a desk. If you want to avoid the Dilbert style of work, you may want to consider one of the occupations on the list that follows.

If you're a bit antsy by nature, nonsedentary work may be a better fit for your energy level, and it probably will be better for your health. Researchers have linked desk jobs to increased incidence of back pain, eyestrain, obesity, and even colon cancer. One Australian study found that men who sit at their desks for more than six hours per day were almost twice as likely to be obese as men who sit for less than 45 minutes. An American study found that women who worked at a sedentary job for 14 years gained 20 pounds more than women who worked in the least sedentary jobs.

First, let me explain how I created this list. The O*NET database, created and maintained for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rates about 1,000 occupations on the level of "general physical activity" that they require, using a scale that ranges from zero to 7. The O*NET also rates every occupation on how much sitting it requires, again using the zero-to-7 scale, so I subtracted this rating from 7 to obtain a rating for how much the occupation allows not sitting. Then I calculated the average of the two ratings--general physical activity and not sitting--and expressed this combined rating on a scale ranging from zero to 100. This is the "Activity Level" measure in the following list. Using this measure, I sorted all occupations for which I had a full set of data and eliminated those that make up the bottom half of the distribution--the 280 most sedentary occupations. The 280 remaining occupations offer at least a moderate amount of moving around.

Next, following the procedure I used in the Best Jobs series of books, I sorted these non-desk-bound occupations three times, using economic information I obtained from the BLS: annual earnings (based on May 2013 estimates), projected growth from 2010 to 2020, and projected annual openings over this same decade. Finally, I summed these three rankings to generate one overall ranking. Occupations with the best combination of economic rewards are to be found closest to the top of the list. Note that adjacent occupations often have only small differences in their overall scores, so a difference of a few places on the list usually is not very significant. Also understand that the earnings figures are national averages, and actual earnings vary by location, specialization, and other factors.

I think you'll agree that the following list covers a wide variety of occupations, with something for almost every interest except maybe the most bookish pursuits:

Rank	Occupation	Activity Level	Annual Earnings	Growth 2010- 20	Annual Openings
1	Physical Therapists	65.7	$81,030	36.0%	12,370
2	Registered Nurses	54.3	$66,220	19.4%	105,260
3	Nurse Practitioners	52.9	$92,670	33.7%	5,850
4	Physician Assistants	55.7	$92,970	38.4%	4,890
5	First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers	61.4	$60,380	23.5%	18,710
6	Occupational Therapists	55.7	$76,940	29.0%	4,820
7	Physical Therapist Assistants	61.4	$53,360	41.0%	4,510
8	Electricians	72.9	$50,510	19.7%	22,460
9	Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters	74.3	$50,180	21.3%	13,050
10	Radiologic Technologists	64.3	$55,200	20.8%	6,960
11	Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses	61.4	$41,920	24.8%	36,310
12	Surgeons	60.0	$187,200	23.2%	2,310
13	Occupational Therapy Assistants	61.4	$55,270	42.6%	2,050
14	Carpenters	77.1	$40,500	24.2%	32,920
15	Industrial Machinery Mechanics	72.9	$47,910	18.9%	15,250
16	Respiratory Therapists	60.0	$56,290	19.1%	4,010
17	Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers	71.4	$43,880	20.9%	12,370
18	Cardiovascular Technologists and Technicians	61.4	$53,210	30.4%	2,300
19	Brickmasons and Blockmasons	82.9	$46,610	35.5%	3,280
20	Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators	54.3	$42,540	18.9%	14,440
21	First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers	57.1	$61,220	7.8%	15,200
22	Surgical Technologists	62.9	$42,720	29.8%	3,910
23	Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers	55.7	$91,920	15.8%	1,730
24	Veterinarians	62.9	$86,640	12.0%	3,100
25	Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education	54.3	$50,230	13.0%	6,510
26	Structural Iron and Steel Workers	80.0	$46,520	21.8%	3,150
27	Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels	61.4	$69,920	13.8%	2,130
28	Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers	58.6	$56,130	5.9%	24,390
29	Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers	74.3	$64,170	8.9%	4,990
30	Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers	75.7	$36,130	29.1%	5,720
31	Service Unit Operators, Oil, Gas, and Mining	77.1	$42,790	20.9%	3,640
32	Elevator Installers and Repairers	80.0	$78,640	24.6%	800
33	Radiation Therapists	62.9	$79,140	23.5%	840
34	Construction and Building Inspectors	61.4	$54,450	12.2%	3,670
35	Sheet Metal Workers	72.9	$43,890	15.5%	4,890
36	Insulation Workers, Mechanical	75.7	$40,500	46.7%	1,730
37	Chiropractors	67.1	$65,300	14.6%	1,520
38	Construction Laborers	77.1	$30,460	24.3%	48,910
39	Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Workers, All Other	60.0	$48,610	17.1%	2,280
40	Painters, Construction and Maintenance	61.4	$35,390	19.8%	11,050
41	Medical Assistants	54.3	$29,610	29.0%	26,990
42	Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas	78.6	$51,570	18.6%	1,540
43	Computer Numerically Controlled Machine Tool Programmers, Metal and Plastic	54.3	$46,510	27.6%	1,350
44	Nuclear Medicine Technologists	54.3	$71,120	20.2%	720
45	Massage Therapists	65.7	$35,920	22.6%	4,410
46	Vocational Education Teachers, Postsecondary	54.3	$48,300	11.8%	3,660
47	First-Line Supervisors of Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers	68.6	$42,570	12.7%	4,990
48	First-Line Supervisors of Fire Fighting and Prevention Workers	72.9	$70,040	6.3%	3,050
49	Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics	65.7	$31,270	23.1%	12,060
50	Millwrights	77.1	$50,030	18.4%	1,340

Careers That Keep You Out of the Cubicle

Are you hoping to avoid the Dilbert work environment? Specifically, do you desire a career that doesn’t require you to sit at a desk all day? I have some suggestions for you.

Maybe you have an antsy personality. Something about you is not satisfied with sitting in one place all day. If you feel strongly about this, you don’t have to explain why.

On the other hand, maybe you favor an active occupation because you are aware that it would be better for your health. Researchers have linked desk jobs to increased incidence of back pain, eyestrain, obesity, and even colon cancer. One Australian study found that men who sit at their desks for more than six hours per day were almost twice as likely to be obese as men who sit for less than 45 minutes. An American study found that women who worked at a sedentary job for 14 years gained 20 pounds more than women who worked in the least sedentary jobs.

Whatever your reason is for seeking active work, that kind of occupation is harder to find than it used to be. The shift to an information-based economy has meant a constant increase in the proportion of workers who manipulate data for a living—and who therefore spend most of the workday sitting at a desk. Researchers have estimated that the percentage of workers in physically demanding occupations decreased from about 20 percent in 1950 to less than 8 percent in 1996. Even in offices, people are probably doing less physical work than they used to do in the days when desk workers cranked mimeograph machines, hand-collated documents, whacked staplers, carried memos from one room to another, and typed (and re-typed) on manual typewriters.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of high-activity occupations for people who prefer them. And these are not just menial jobs that are likely to be phased out as soon as someone invents the right kind of robot to do them. Many active occupations have good earnings and are expected to have good job opportunities. They allow you to use your brains as well as your muscles and involve the kinds of people and problems that can keep you interested in your work.

To identify these occupations, I looked at two measures in the O*NET database that indicate level of physical activity. One is a work activity measure called Performing General Physical Activities. It is defined as “Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling of materials.” Every occupation has a rating between 0 and 7 on this measure. The other measure is a physical work condition called Spending Time Sitting, which represents how much the occupation requires sitting. (Despite the name, it is not strictly a measure of time.) This measure also uses a rating scale between 0 and 7, so I subtracted each occupation’s rating from 7 to determine the amount to which the occupation does not involve sitting. I then took the average of these two work activity measures to get an overall score indicating the level of physical activity—i.e., how much the occupation is not behind a desk. Then I removed the least-active half of the occupations and kept the most-active half.

This was still a large list, so to focus on the most rewarding occupations, I followed the procedures I use in the “Best Jobs” series of books. I eliminated occupations that lack economic data, those with a particularly dismal outlook, and those that pay only a pittance. Then I ranked the 340 remaining nonsedentary occupations three times, based on these major criteria: median annual earnings (May 2011 estimates), projected growth through 2020, and number of job openings projected per year through 2020.

Here are the best 30 occupations that don’t trap you behind a desk. The figures for “Physical” and “Sitting” indicate how each occupation scores on overall physical activity and requirement of sitting, on a scale where 0 is minimal and 1 is maximal: