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2032 Employment Projections: Computer and Mathematical Occupations Grow

2032 Employment Projections: Computer and Mathematical Occupations Grow

By Lainey Stalnaker, Data Analytics Writer

 

2032 Employment Projections Computer and Mathematical Occupations Grow

 

We continue our series on employment projections by exploring another group of jobs with high potential for growth: computer and mathematical occupations.[1] New technology is constantly emerging. In response, we’re expecting demand for novel skillsets to surge as businesses adapt to and take advantage of the changing technological landscape. 

From 2022 to 2032, computer and mathematical occupations are projected to grow 24 percent across South Carolina—from 51,000 to 63,000, an increase of 12,000 jobs. Annual job openings are expected to exceed 4,600, with 1,200 of these openings resulting from new demand. 

One of the fastest growing jobs in this group is data scientist, a role responsible for analyzing, manipulating, and processing large sets of data using statistical software. Data scientist jobs are projected to grow 48 percent across South Carolina over the decade. In the Lowcountry Local Workforce Development Area (LWDA), the data scientist occupation is projected to grow 108 percent, faster than any other occupation in the region. Data scientist is one of the top five fastest growing jobs in nine other regions in South Carolina as well.

Data scientists enjoy high demand across industries, as their skills can be applied in a variety of ways for a wide range of objectives. In 2024, data scientists in South Carolina were employed in sectors such as educational services; healthcare and social assistance; finance and insurance; information; federal, state and local government; manufacturing; and professional, scientific, and technical services, among others, pointing to the versatility of the job.[2]

Another job showing strong growth across the state is information security analyst, a role that implements and monitors security measures for the protection of computer networks and information. With more and more work requiring the use of computer systems, demand for information security analysts continues to rise, as evidenced by their projected growth rate of 43 percent. Information security analysts are one of the top three fastest growing occupations in the Greenville, Lowcountry, Santee-Lynches, and Upstate LWDAs, and are in the top ten in four other LWDAs.

Other jobs in this occupation group that are showing rapid projected growth include statistician, actuary, software developer, operations research analyst, software quality assurance analyst and tester, web developer, and web and digital interface designer, which are all in the top ten percent of fastest growing jobs in the state. 

See Figure 1 below for the top ten fastest growing computer and mathematical occupations in South Carolina from 2022 to 2032. For comparison, the average growth over the period for all South Carolina occupations (11 percent) is included as a baseline.

                            2032 Employment Projections Computer and Mathematical Occupations Grow


 

[1] All projections data are from LMI’s employment projections program. More information is available at our website. 

[2] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2024/may/oes_research_estimates.htm