When choosing what to study, many international students consider which fields are in high demand and will have a clear path to work experience in their host country after they’ve graduated. Understanding how labour markets are changing helps institutions offer learning pathways aligned with community needs and recruitment professionals to guide their students effectively. In turn, students can meaningfully leverage their new skills and knowledge after graduation.
Below, we’re taking a closer look at how labour markets have evolved over the last five years, and which fields of work are expected to grow through the 2030s in Australia, Canada, the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Health care and social assistance fields have a high number of vacant roles across the globe, with vacancy rates projected to grow over the next decade.
- In April 2024, the US had over 1.5 million open positions in the health care and social assistance sector, which is also projected to create around 45% of all new jobs in the US from 2022 to 2032.1
- Jobs that require science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduates, such as professional and technical services, are also in high demand.
- Canada and Australia’s labour markets are expected to grow by 15% and 14% respectively by the 2030s, while the UK is projecting a smaller expansion of 4% between 2025 and 2035.
- Employment in the US is projected to grow by about 3%2 between 2022 and 2032.
In many destination countries, job vacancies peaked in the summer of 2022. That said, while job vacancies have trended downwards since, vacancies in 2024 are still generally higher than in 2019. Plus, in all of these countries, select fields showed strong ongoing demand. For example, students who train in fields like information and communication technology (ICT) or health care are likely to find their skills in demand both in their study destination and around the world.
Jobs in Demand in Australia
Overall, job vacancies in Australia have decreased quarter-over-quarter since May 2022. However, shortages persist in several key sectors. Per the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the total number of job vacancies was 55% higher in May 2024 than it was in February 2020. The chart below contrasts job vacancy numbers for Australia in select sectors3 between 2019 and 2024:
Between 2019 and 2024, vacancies increased across many sectors, especially in health care and social assistance (+121%) and education and training (+111%). While vacancy numbers improved for many fields over the last year, demand in the education sector actually grew. Students graduating from teaching programs in Australia in the near future are likely to see many job openings to suit their new skills and educational experience.
Australia’s small but diverse information media and telecommunications sector, with roles from librarians to software programmers, has a vacancy rate which has stabilized in recent years. It had the same percentage of vacancies in 2023 and 2024, which may indicate supply (workers) and demand (open roles) growing at a similar pace. Many other key sectors are seeing demand for workers decrease with fewer vacancies in 2024 versus 2023. This is good news for students pursuing information technology (IT) courses—a major field of interest for many students. In fact, technology, software engineering, computer programming, and IT was the most-searched subcategory on the entire ApplyBoard platform in 2023, with 12% of all searches.
High-Demand Job Projections for Australia
Looking beyond today’s trends to the next decade, the Australian job market is projected to grow across all of the sectors featured above:
Between 2023 and 2033, Jobs and Skills Australia projects almost 2 million jobs will be added to the labour market.4 As the Australian population ages, health care and social assistance alone is expected to grow by over half a million employees. The professional, scientific and technical services sector is also expected to grow by 18 percentage points, adding 233,600 new jobs over that time frame. For international graduates who secure a Temporary Graduate visa, this means thriving STEM and business fields in which to gain work experience.
Jobs in Demand in the United States
With almost 8 million job vacancies in April 2024, international students in the US are graduating into a talent-hungry labour market. The chart below shows job vacancies for the US market in some key sectors:5
The most job openings in the sectors detailed above are in professional and business services.6 This diverse sector includes law, accounting, engineering, computer science, and management roles, which means recent graduates from these programs—from STEM fields to MBAs—will find their skills in demand. The same can be said for graduates of health care and social assistance programs. In April 2024, the US had over 1.5 million open positions in healthcare and social assistance.
High-Demand Job Projections for the US
Looking ahead, the American job market is projected to grow by about 3% by 2032. As 55% of international students in the US are enrolled in STEM fields, per 2023 Open Doors data, let’s look at how STEM and non-STEM fields may evolve:
STEM occupations are projected to grow by 11% over the next decade, much higher than the job market average of 3%. The median annual wage for these roles (US$101,650) is also double that of the non-STEM occupations (US$46,680), which can make studying STEM fields a compelling option for students.
The American health care field is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) projects there will be an average of 1.8 million new openings in the health care sector every year until 2032, due to worker replacement and sector growth.
Did you know the US hosted over 1.5 million international students in 2023? Read our ApplyInsights article to learn what—and where—they chose to study.
Jobs in Demand in Canada
When compared with countries like the United States, the smaller size of the Canadian and Australian labour markets is notable. Like Australia and the US, vacancies in most Canadian industries are continuing to shrink year-over-year versus 2023, but have increased compared to 2019. The chart below shows Canadian job vacancies7 in key sectors:
A couple of key sectors in Canada’s labour market have seen significant changes over the past five years. The number of vacancies in the information and cultural sector have decreased by almost 5,000 jobs since 2019. On the other hand, health care and social assistance vacancies have gone up by 78%. In fact, the sector continues to struggle with filling much-needed skilled roles, and vacancy rates nearly doubled to 5% in 2024.
Fortunately, international students’ interest in health-related fields is rising. ApplyBoard’s Pulse Surveys found that the number of respondents who planned to take healthcare programs increased by nine percentage points between Spring and Fall 2023.
High-Demand Job Projections for Canada
Let’s look at how different sectors in the Canadian labour market are projected to grow:
The overall Canadian labour market is projected to grow by 15% between 2021 and 2031.8 This predicted growth rate is similar to Australia’s and, as we’ll explore further down, nearly four times that of the UK. The healthcare, professional services, and management and support services sectors are expected to grow faster than the market average. While the ICT and education sectors are still slated to expand, it will likely be at a slower pace.
Labour Market Projections for the European Union
Employment in the EU is projected to grow over the next decade across all featured sectors. While the change rates below may look smaller than other regions, the EU’s collective population of 449 million9 means notable shifts represent much larger populations than those of individual nations. The chart below shows employment projections for the European Union (EU) in key sectors:
Some of the largest job market expansions are projected in ICT (15% projected growth) and health care (12%). Both fields are expected to grow much faster than the market-wide average of 1%, which may translate to a wealth of job opportunities for the next several cohorts of new graduates. And, international students are becoming more curious about opportunities in these sectors: “health” was among the top three queries on the ApplyBoard platform last year.
Students worldwide are also more curious about studying in the EU. ApplyBoard’s Spring 2024 student pulse survey found that 43% of respondents were thinking about destinations beyond the “big four” (Canada, Australia, the US, and the UK). Four of the top five countries mentioned by students are part of the EU: Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Italy.
Jobs in Demand in the United Kingdom
While job vacancies have fallen over the last year across the UK, many sectors still have higher vacancy rates than they did in 2019. The chart below shows job vacancies for the United Kingdom in key sectors:10
As in other destinations, vacancies remained high in health and social work. However, in the UK, the largest shift in vacancies is in education, with an increase of 22% over 2019. High vacancy rates lead to labour shortages: for example, the National Education Union and the National Association of Head Teachers noted that 2023 recruitment for trainee secondary school teachers was behind by 48%.11
Education sector workers are facing many challenges: long hours, a drop in real pay of 9% between 2010 and 2023 for teachers, and over a decade of federal funding austerity. However, promised investment to public schools and increased access to mental health supports for students were central tenets of the recently elected Labour Party’s platform. With time and follow-through, these changes will create improved working and learning environments in UK schools—and career opportunities for education and health care graduates.
High-Demand Job Projections for the UK
Over the next decade, the UK’s job market is largely projected to grow. Let’s take a closer look:
For the UK, the only key sector not expected to grow is finance and insurance, which may be attributed to a number of factors including the sector’s ongoing drive toward automation.
Conversely, support services (+7%), professional services (+7%), health and social work (+7%), and information technology (+8%) are all projected to grow faster than the overall growth rate of 4%.
Interestingly, the sector with the highest projected growth rate is arts and entertainment (9%). The arts are central to the UK’s cultural strength, whether through renowned theatre and film industries or its status as the world’s second-largest market for visual art. Arts and entertainment weathered the second-highest number of laid off workers in the UK during the pandemic,12 so this sector’s continued recovery is a hopeful indicator of its health.
Key Takeaways
Across the world, the demand for health care workers remains at a critical level that is only expected to grow over the next decade. In many countries, this field is both the fastest-growing and the one with the most vacancies. And while health sciences are not always easy careers to step into, a purpose-driven Generation Z student cohort may see their values align with the effect these fields can have, and be just what the sector needs.
Other STEM-related sectors, including computer science and IT, are also growing considerably. These are competitive fields, with high levels of interest from international students. But the need for these future graduates is great, whether in the UK, where 1.9 million STEM professionals will be needed by 2035,13 or in the US, where 1.1 million new STEM-related positions are projected to appear between 2022 and 2032.
As student mobility rises, institutions and educational professionals will excel if they can illustrate the whole picture: why a field of study matters, and how students can connect with industry to gain hands-on experience during their studies. Knowing which careers a certification prepares students for, and which fields are growing is important to ensure class sizes and offerings are equipped to handle both student and job market needs at the institutional level. Lastly, regularly updating statistics like graduate engagement or employment rates can help students see how studying a specific course or program has helped others progress—which can help them imagine their own success.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “News Release: Employment Projections – 2022–2032.” Sep. 6, 2023.
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment Projections: 2022–2032 Summary.” Sep. 6, 2023.
3. All Australian data is courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), unless otherwise noted.
4. Jobs and Skills Australia (Australian Government), “Employment Projections.”
5. All US data is courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), unless otherwise noted.
6. In the United States, the “Professional and Business Services” sector includes the “Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services,” “Management of Companies and Enterprises,” and “Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services” sectors, per the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics.
7. All Canadian data is courtesy of Statistics Canada, unless otherwise noted.
8. Government of Canada – Canadian Occupational Projection System. “Employment Projections.” Jul. 19, 2023.
9. Eurostat, “Demography of Europe – 2024 edition.”
10. All UK data is courtesy of the UK Department for Education, unless otherwise noted.
11. Sally Weale, The Guardian. “Only half of required number of trainee secondary teachers in England recruited,” Sep. 12, 2023.
12. Jonathan Deakin, Tom Meakin, Tunde Olanrewaju, and Van Nguyen. McKinsey & Company. “Introduction: Seeing the Big Picture,” Nov. 20, 2023.
13. Universities UK, Jobs of the future. October 2023.
