Career research
Official career and occupation data for the US, Europe, UK, Canada, and Australia
Find reusable occupation, skills, employment, and wage datasets without relying on scraped job-board pages.
US sources
For the United States, combine O*NET occupation and skills data with BLS employment and wage statistics. Keep each dataset’s release date and occupation code.
Sources outside the US
For Europe, ESCO provides occupations, skills, and multilingual labels. The UK, Canada, and Australia maintain separate official classifications and labour-market sources.
Compare carefully
Compare occupations by duties, not title alone. Record source, edition, region and occupation code alongside each finding. For reuse, check the licence and attribution; for a career decision, check current local training and licensing requirements separately.
Make the right call
Use official data to answer a career question
Suppose you are comparing two possible careers, not building a data product. Start with the job’s actual tasks, usual entry requirements and local employment context. A matching title alone does not show that two occupations or qualifications are equivalent.
| Check | Example or action | How to judge the result |
|---|---|---|
| What does the work involve? | Use O*NET tasks and skills for the US, or ESCO occupation and skill descriptions in Europe. | Compare duties you would actually perform. ESCO is not a source of local salary offers. |
| What training and pay should I investigate? | Use the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook and wage tables for a US occupation; consult the relevant national service elsewhere. | Note geography, data year, hourly versus annual basis and median versus mean. A median is not an entry-level salary or an offer. |
| Can I compare across countries? | Keep each occupation code and edition; use an official crosswalk when one exists. | Currency conversion alone ignores hours, taxes, cost of living and classification differences. Read job requirements and licensing information separately. |