Press Release

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2018

Fastest-Growing Jobs for Professionals in Higher Ed: Data Analysts and Police and Public Safety Officers

While the employment of professionals in higher education saw an overall increase of 7 percent and grew in all areas over the past year, two areas — “other education” and “safety” — grew at a substantially faster clip than all the rest.

According to just-released findings from CUPA-HR’s 2018 Professionals in Higher Education Survey, while these two areas are the smallest in the higher ed professional workforce, they had the greatest growth by far among all other areas over last year. Other education professionals (which includes the positions of biostatistician, statistician, data scientist and data analyst) grew by 43 percent, and safety professionals grew by 30 percent. Data analysts saw the greatest increase — 282 reported positions in 2017 to 545 positions in 2018. Police and public safety grew from 1,077 to 1,403 employees.

“It is not surprising that these are the positions seeing the greatest growth,” says Jacqueline Bichsel, CUPA-HR’s director of research. “Institutions continue to invest more in analytics for student success and strategic decision-making, so data analysts are in demand. And an increased media focus on sexual assaults and hazing incidents may underlie a need for a greater police presence on campus to respond to or prevent such incidents.”

Select Findings
Here are some other findings from this year’s survey:

Salary Increases
The overall median salary increase for professionals in higher education over the past year is 2.2 percent. The largest median salary increases for 2017-18 went to professionals in athletic affairs and institutional affairs. Professionals in academic affairs and research received the smallest median salary increases.

Highest- and Lowest-Paid Professionals
Professionals in the area of health science and environmental sustainability make the highest salaries. Those in student affairs make the lowest.

Largest Professional Areas
Academic affairs, student affairs and IT are the top three professional employment areas, making up about half of all professional positions in higher education.

Representation and Pay of Women and Minorities
In general, women are well-represented in professional positions in colleges and universities, but earn only 90 cents for every $1.00 earned by men. In contrast, racial/ethnic minorities are under-represented in most professional positions (making up only 22 percent of the higher ed professional workforce), but their salaries are nearly equal to those of their White counterparts.

Age and Years in Position
Areas with the highest median age are facilities and supervisors of office/clerical, skilled craft and service/maintenance personnel. Areas with the youngest median age are student affairs, athletic affairs and other education. Overall, professionals have been in their positions for a median of four years.

Research Professional
This year’s survey took a deeper dive into research positions (research assistant, research associate, research scholar, senior research scholar and principal research scholar in the fields of physical, social, medical and life sciences). Among the findings:

  • The lowest-level titles — assistants and associates — make up about two-thirds of research professionals in physical sciences, social sciences and life sciences, and about 80 percent of research professionals in medical sciences.
  • The majority of higher ed research professionals are White or Asian. The representation of Hispanic/Latino and Black/African American research professionals tends to decrease with increases in rank in all fields with one exception — Hispanics/Latinos make up a relatively large proportion of principal scholars in medical sciences.

About the Survey
This year’s Professionals in Higher Education Survey includes data for 219,175 professionals in 358 positions at 1,110 institutions.  In addition to salary data, the survey collects data on gender, race/ethnicity, age, and years in position at the incumbent level for all professionals.

For a list of participating institutions, a report overview, information on data collected and options for purchasing the survey report and DataOnDemand, visit the Professionals in Higher Education web page.

About CUPA-HR
CUPA-HR is the recognized authority on compensation surveys for higher education, with its salary surveys designed by higher ed HR professionals for higher ed HR professionals and other campus leaders. Learn more about CUPA-HR research.

CUPA-HR serves higher education by providing the knowledge, resources, advocacy and connections to achieve organizational and workforce excellence. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and serving 25,000 HR professionals and other campus leaders at more than 2,000 member institutions and organizations around the country and abroad, the association offers learning and professional development programs, higher education salary and benefits data, extensive online resources and just-in-time regulatory and legislative information.