The hottest jobs of 2021 and

considerations for compensation

planning in a hyper job market.
Learn about the hottest jobs in 2021 and how
compensation planning can help employers attract
and retain talent during The Great Reshuffle.
Summary
The problem is that once employees start looking — and especially if
How do we stay competitive in this job market? What will convince our
they start interviewing — they are much more likely to be persuaded that
employees to stick to their positions despite the opportunity that is out
another opportunity on another team under a new manager holds more
there?
promise or better rewards than where they are currently. And that leads to
turnover.
These are the questions organizations are asking during what is being
called The Great Reshuffle.
In other words, in a job market this hot, paying employees less than what
they can make on the open market is foolhardy. It’s a recipe for losing those
2021 has not been an easy year for HR leaders and compensation
employees to other opportunities. This is especially true if employees with
professionals. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to manage
a few years of experience look up what they should be making by taking an
hiring and retention when the job market is wild, especially with inflation
online salary survey — such as on Payscale.com — and come to discover
spiraling out of control amidst labor and supply chain shortages. This
that they make less than the median for their position, company size, years
is particularly difficult if you have a fixed budget… or even a depressed
of experience, location, and special skills or responsibilities.
budget… when it comes to payroll.

So, what should you do?

From numerous research studies, we know that perception of fair
compensation is a key factor in attracting and retaining talent. Other
First, it’s critical to understand which jobs are hottest and how much they
aspects of a job matter too — its relevance to the passions and skills
are being paid at the median on the open market. You should do this for all
of the individual, how well the manager and team gets along, the
your jobs and all of your employees occupying those jobs, not just for new
opportunity to grow and progress along a career path, and so on — but if
hires.
the compensation isn’t right, employees are going to at least look at the
opportunity elsewhere. They can’t afford not to.
Second, you need to come up with a plan for pay increases that
appropriately rewards employees for both market changes and their
Compensation is closely tied to feelings of personal worth, so if an
performance while also giving a thought to inflation.
employee feels that they can make more money at another job in another
organization, they’re going to give it consideration. This is often true even
Finally, you need to communicate to employees about the work you have
if the employee loves their current position. They have to consider what
done and what they can expect when it comes to pay increases and total
making more money would mean for their life in terms of both spending and
rewards — before you lose them.
saving. That’s not a small matter.

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2021 year in review
Summary ____________________________________________________________________ 2

The Hottest Jobs of 2021 ___________________________________________________ 4

By profile growth for job seekers __________________________________ 5

By profile growth overall ___________________________________________ 6

By Fastest wage growth ___________________________________________ 7

Considerations for Compensation Planning in 2022 ________________________ 8

Take our Compensation Best Practices Survey ____________________ 8

How Payscale can help _____________________________________________________ 9

Salary data ________________________________________________________ 9

Compensation strategy and structure _____________________________ 9

Compensation planning for pay increases _________________________ 9

Pay Equity _________________________________________________________ 9

Pay Analysis _______________________________________________________ 9

Collaboration & Impact ____________________________________________ 9

Job Description Management _____________________________________ 9

Pay Communications ______________________________________________ 9

Research & insights on hot topics and pay trends __________________________ 10

Compensation Best Practices Survey _____________________________ 10

2021 State of Remote Work Report ________________________________ 10

2021 Wage and Labor Market Trends Whitepaper _________________ 10

Fair Pay Impact Report ____________________________________________ 10

Compensation Strategy Whitepaper_______________________________ 10

About the Hot Jobs Report _________________________________________________ 11

Overview _________________________________________________________ 11

Methodology ______________________________________________________ 11

Definitions _________________________________________________________ 11

About Payscale ____________________________________________________ 11

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The hottest jobs of 2021
The “Hottest Jobs of 2021” is a list ranking that originates from
Payscale’s Crowdsourced data, which draws from 65 million employee-
submitted profiles overall with 350,000 new profiles added monthly to
provide a real-world reflection of the compensation market. To curate
our 2021 hot jobs list, Payscale analyzed over 856,000 salary profiles
completed between October 2020 and October 2021 by U.S. workers.

To create this report, we looked at the hottest jobs in 2021 from Top 20 Jobs by Profile Growth for Job Seekers
a couple of different angles. In Payscale’s online salary survey, What are the hottest new jobs people are
participants must choose to create a salary profile for a new job evaluating during The Great Reshuffle?
offer or a current position. To ascertain which jobs are driving career
changes during The Great Reshuffle, we first looked at the fastest
growing jobs associated with job seekers, or people who filled out a
salary profile to evaluate a new job offer. We also looked at the hottest Top 20 Jobs by Profile Growth Overall
jobs associated with new profiles overall as well as jobs ranked by
For what jobs are people most interested
fastest growing wage growth.
in looking up current salary ranges?

Top 20 Jobs by Fastest Wage Growth

What jobs are experiencing the most
dramatic changes in compensation?

Curious what you or your

employees should be earning?
Take Payscale’s Online Salary Survey

Start survey

4
 % mostly
Profile % Wage
Rank Job Title Median Pay or fully
Growth Growth
remote
1 Beauty Consultant $27,300 79% 13% 7%

2 Senior Data Engineer $139,000 51% 50% 3%

3 Senior Recruiter $88,400 38% 52% 2%

4
The hottest jobs of 2021 Recruiting Coordinator $51,000 38% 34% 3%

By profile growth for job seekers

5 Retail Sales Associate $25,000 37% 9% 5%

6 Social Media Manager $52,100 35% 40% 3%

7 Hairdresser/Hairstylist $25,300 35% 15% 3%

This ranked list represents jobs with the most growth
8 Clinical Research Associate $67,700 34% 46% 6%
in Payscale’s online salary survey from respondents
who are evaluating a job offer. Here we see positions 9 Content Strategist $73,100 34% 44% 8%
in retail, marketing, and human resources (including 10 Compensation Analyst $67,900 34% 33% 3%
compensation analysts!) topping the list. This
11 Talent Acquisition Specialist $58,400 33% 37% 4%
shouldn’t be a surprise as 2021 has been a year
12 Social Media Coordinator $40,200 32% 29% 2%
focused on rebounding, rebuilding, and restaffing
which has created a lot of demand for these positions. 13 Account Director $114,000 30% 45% 1%

14 Personal Shopper $26,500 29% 9% 7%

For more information about the top 10 jobs in this list,
15 Associate Director, Non-Profit $77,800 26% 27% 2%
see our 2021 End of Year Hottest Jobs Report.
16
Senior Manufacturing Engineer $102,000 26% 9% 2%

17 Architectural Designer $55,400 24% 20% 1%

18 Senior Marketing Manager $117,000 22% 40% 1%

19 Strategy Manager $117,000 21% 34% 1%

20 Director of Analytics $152,000 20% 40% 2%

5
 % mostly
Profile % Wage
Rank Job Title Median Pay or fully
Growth Growth
remote

1 Manager, Customer Success Team $105,000 107% 57% 1%

The hottest jobs of 2021
2 Sales Team Leader, Retail $33,300 44% 8% 9%

3 Diversity Manager $86,800 44% 33% 2% By profile growth overall

4 Sales Advisor $31,200 39% 24% 1%

5 Email Marketing Specialist $54,700 28% 38% 3% This ranked list represents jobs with the most profile
6 SEO Manager $76,100 35% 43% 8% growth in Payscale’s online salary survey from

7 Wealth Advisor $84,300 34% 25% 3%

respondents overall, regardless of whether they
are evaluating a job offer, their current position, or
8 Senior Manager Auditor $136,000 34% 32% 2%
just exploring the job market. This list is helpful for
9 Engineering Supervisor 106,000 32% 16% 6% understanding what jobs might be most at risk of
10 Personal Shopper $27,100 27% 9% 7% losing people, particularly when it comes to pay, as

11 Beauty Consultant $27,700 26% 13% 7% these are the jobs that employees are keenest on
evaluating when it comes to compensation.
12 Environmental Manager $90,100 26% 14% 0%

13 Development Manager, Non-profit $54,000 23% 34% 2%

For this list, we see more positions in sales and
14 Senior Data Engineer $134,000 23% 50% 3% customer service, as well as diversity, marketing,
15 Product Marketing Director $156,000 22% 48% 0% and technology occupations, as well as some retail

16 Market Research Manager $88,700 21% 38% 0%

positions that have grown in prominence. These are
jobs that are seeing the most interest when it comes
17 Strategy Analyst $76,800 21% 33% 2%
to evaluating worth on the market.
18 Data Engineer $97,000 21% 54% 3%

19 Talent Acquisition Director $129,000 21% 39% 4%

20 Tax Director $181,000 20% 27% 6%

6
 % mostly
Profile
Rank Job Title Median Pay or fully
Growth
remote
1 Media Director $101,000 35% 27%
2 Bartender $21,900 18% 8%

The hottest jobs of 2021 3 Chief Engineer $88,100 17% 13%

By fastest wage growth

4 Director of eCommerce $129,000 17% 34%
5 Insurance Broker $77,400 16% 34%
6 Ministry Director $38,400 15% 9%
This ranked list represents jobs with the fastest growing 7 Tax Preparer $35,500 14% 10%
wage growth in Payscale’s online salary survey from
8 Live-In Caregiver $29,400 14% 20%
respondents overall, regardless of whether they are
9 Assistant Manager, Fast Food $29,900 13% 7%
evaluating a job offer, their current position, or just exploring
10 Biomedical Engineer $74,800 13% 16%
the job market. This list is helpful in understanding which
11 Designer, Kitchen & Bath $43,700 13% 10%
occupations may require market adjustments — potentially
12 Program Manager, Marketing $90,200 13% 37%
hefty ones — in order to retain employees who might
13 Patient Advocate $42,400 13% 30%
otherwise check out the open market. In this list we see a
14 Field Operations Manager $70,800 13% 23%
larger variety of positions ranging from media to healthcare
to design and technology. 15 Journeyman Carpenter $70,800 12% 6%
16 Fashion Designer $69,000 12% 19%

17 Senior Technical Support Engineer $91,100 12% 51%

18 Assembly Line worker $33,300 12% 10%
19 Relationship Manager $72,400 12% 26%
20 Technical Services Manager $86,100 12% 18%

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 Considerations for compensation planning in 2022
The ranked lists in the previous section show only a fraction of the jobs that are hot in 2021.
You probably have positions that are not onthe top 20 hottest jobs list. That doesn’t mean
that the market hasn’t changed for these jobs.

Take our The short of it

compensation best You’re at risk of losing employees if you don’t pay close attention to how the job market is changing.

practices survey Market adjustments are necessary in addition to pay increases for performance and inflation — at least if
performance and inflation-based adjustments don’t increase pay to the new market value.
(CBPR)

Payscale’s survey on + inflation

compensation best practices Prior base pay + performace = New base pay
is open for participation now
+ market adjustment
through the end of December
in 2021 and can help us provide
you with data on compensation
Your usual may not be enough
planning and related topics.
Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for organizations to budget for pay increases based on the previous year
regardless of what is happening in the job market. Since the last recession, the average pay increase given
to employees has been less than three percent, but with inflation over six percent, sticking to this formula

Start survey would effectively issue a pay cut to employees in terms of the value of their wages.

Consider younger employees in particular

You might want to give some special thought to younger employees who may have entered the job market
below the median for their pay range — especially if they joined the workforce during COVID-19. Employees
with a year or two of experience being paid entry level salaries are a high flight risk.

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Understand your limitations and collaborate on your plan
Obviously, payroll is a considerable expense and the budget for pay increases is not
unlimited. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to retain an employee that is going
to get a better deal at another organization. But often there is. If you have employees
that are strong performers, fit in great with the team, and are passionate about your
organization’s mission, you don’t want to lose them over insufficient pay. It can help
to collaborate with managers on their views of who has earned what.

Frame the request for more budget the right way

If you need to secure more budget, it might be worth framing the question around
what it would cost to replace all the underpaid talent you currently have at the going
market rates. The difference between bumping salaries for current employees who
are already productive versus hiring all new employees at market value - and having
to train them on their roles to boot - should be compelling.

Remember that it’s about fairness…and doing what’s right

Making market adjustments for your current employees —not just new hires —
shows the ones who have stuck it out with you when times were tough that you
value them. Making market adjustments for current employees also helps maintain
pay equity, which should always be top of mind.

9
How Payscale can help
Payscale is the industry leader in compensation management, offering a Get in touch with a representative at

combination of data, software, and services to help organizations of all Payscale to learn more about our
Request a demo
sizes in every industry get pay right. salary data, software, and services.

Salary Data Pay Equity

The market is changing but Payscale has the pulse on how much and When you’re hiring new talent at new market rates, it’s important to

how fast. We can provide you with direct access to multiple streams keep an eye on the impact to the rest of the organization. Payscale

of diverse, validated salary data, including salary data that comes enables pay equity impact tracking alongside pay increases, as well

directly from your industry peers, Crowdsourced data, and traditional as deeper and more complex pay equity analysis templates, tools,

surveys from publishers. and support.

Compensation Strategy and Structure Pay Analysis

Pay equity analysis is just one type of analysis that Payscale
It can be tough to keep up with pay if you don’t have a philosophy
enables. We also offer numerous standard reports like compa-
and a formal approach to help you determine your targets and guide
ratio and merit matrix as well as customizable visualizations and
your pay decisions. Payscale’s software can help you create and
dashboards to help you understand compensation trends and
house your pay strategy and structures. We also have services to
spotlight flight risks and other problems across the workforce.
assist you with development.

Compensation Planning for Pay Increases Job Description Management

Payscale has compensation software that allows you to build and
Payscale’s modern compensation software provides you with
revise job descriptions alongside salary data and market pricing with
templates and tools to determine pay increases by job family, cohort,
the ability to collaborate and manage approvals across teams.
individual, or team, generate budget estimations for pay increases
holistically, and document which employees need higher increases
Pay Communications
and why.
Your compensation strategy won’t be effective if employees
don’t understand it. Payscale offers the ability to generate total
Collaboration & Impact
rewards statements for hiring managers that you can customize
Compensation isn’t a solo affair. Payscale products have built-
by select groups. We also offer services to help you explain your
in tools to help you communicate effectively and efficiently with
compensation practices to your employees.
managers and deliver reports to leadership.

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More research & insights on hot topics and pay trends
Payscale continually covers hot topics with fresh data and analysis related to compensation best
practices designed to provide guidance on how to get pay right. Find all of the resources on
Payscale’s website at Research and Insights.

Compensation Best Practices Survey

The largest survey in the world dedicated to compensation best practices is open for participation Take the survey
now through the end of December in 2021 and will inform our largest report (CBPR) in 2022.

2021 State of Remote Work Report

Employers agree that remote work will change the competitive landscape when it comes to attracting and retaining
Get the report
talent, but what about pay strategy? This report includes data surveying both employee expectations and what
employers are planning when it comes to remote work.

2021 Wage and Labor Market Trends Whitepaper

Inflation is rising from COVID-19 impacting the global supply chain, but just how bad is it? This whitepaper helps Download whitepaper

employers understand data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and how to react.

Fair Pay Impact Report

Getting pay right isn’t just about market pricing. It’s also about pay communications and pay transparency. This report
Get the report
explains how job seeking behavior is influenced by the perception that pay is unfair even when it’s not and what
employers need to be doing to combat misunderstanding.

Compensation Strategy Whitepaper

Do you believe that compensation is important but struggle year over year to get a solid compensation strategy,
Download whitepaper
structures, and management practices in place to support your organization? Compensation maturity is a journey
requiring proper investment in people, processes, data, and technology.

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Overview
Payscale provides a list of hot jobs which have seen the highest growth in
profile frequency & wages from our salary survey from 2020 to 2021. We
also provide other annual trends from our data, including: a hot jobs list of
About Payscale
most evaluated job offers, reasons for unemployment in the last 6 months,
BLS unemployment stats and wage growth trends. As the industry leader in compensation management,
Payscale helps job seekers, employees and businesses

Methodology
Payscale analyzed over 856,000 salary profiles completed between
October 2020 and October 2021 by U.S. workers to curate our 2021 hot
jobs list.BLS Labor Turnover: Data sourced from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) Survey, September
2021 release. Industries selected are those with the highest quarterly and
annual wage growth from the 2021 Q3 Payscale Index, as well as those with
the highest quits rates (voluntary separations, see JOLT survey.)
Definitions
Total Cash Compensation (TCC): TCC combines base annual salary
or hourly wage, bonuses, profit sharing, tips, commissions, and other
forms of cash earnings, as applicable. It does not include equity (stock)
compensation, cash value of retirement benefits, or value of other non-cash
benefits (e.g., healthcare).
get pay right, with 10,000 customers, including 53% of the
Fortune 500, and prices 27 million jobs annually with $1.4
trillion in value across 198 countries. Payscale’s mission
is to empower organizations to make fair compensation a
strategic imperative and fuel every pay decision with data-
driven confidence, accompanied by best-in-class services,
and innovative software. Payscale provides multiple
options to contrast, manage, and analyze pay data, helping
employers to make equitable compensation decisions.
Fueled by predictive analytics, practical recommendations,
and industry insights, Payscale helps HR teams to adjust
compensation reflecting near real-time changes in the
market —with the competitive advantage of adapting faster.
To learn how companies like The Washington Post, Perry
Ellis International, United Healthcare and The New York

Median Pay: The median pay is the national median (50th percentile) annual Times rely on Payscale to attract and retain top talent,

total cash compensation. Half the people doing the job earn more than the engage employees, and plan their future workforce, visit

median, while half earn less. www.payscale.com.

% Pay Difference: This is the average positive impact that a skill has on pay
for the given occupational group. If an Art & Design worker sees on average
Pay is Powerful™.
a 10 percent impact on pay with a skill in user interface design, then they
will on average earn 10 percent more than their counterparts without that
skill. This calculation controls for compensable factors, including job title,
experience, location, etc.

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