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Healthcare & Human Services

National Career Cluster · the map of work

Healthcare & Human Services is one of the 14 national career clusters — the U.S. Department of Education's map that divides the whole world of work into broad families, each crosswalked to occupations, education programs, and industries. This cluster spans 146 occupations across 6 sub-clusters, employing about 24,568,300 workers, with a median wage of $61,560.

What's in this cluster

A career cluster is a navigational grouping, not a measured score. The counts below come from the framework's official crosswalk; employment and pay are aggregated from BLS OEWS (national, cross-industry, May 2024) across the occupations in the cluster.

146 occupations
6 sub-clusters
24,568,300 workers (BLS)
$61,560 median pay
766 education programs

Across occupations with wage data, the middle range (25th–75th percentile of occupation medians) runs $45,980 – $93,330. This describes the cluster, not any one job or person.

Sub-clusters

The framework splits each cluster into sub-clusters — tighter families of related work. The count is the number of occupations the crosswalk places in each.

Sub-cluster Occupations
Physical Health 87
Personal Care Services 17
Community & Social Services 16
Behavioral & Mental Health 13
Biotechnology Research & Development 13
Health Data & Administration 12

Largest occupations in this cluster

Exposure quadrant: AI task-overlap percentile vs Median pay AI task-overlap (horizontal) versus median pay (vertical), each as a percentile across all scored occupations, for 36 occupations in Healthcare & Human Services. Overlap measures shared tasks with AI, not automation. Lower overlap · higher pay Higher overlap · higher pay Higher overlap · lower pay Lower overlap · lower pay Nursing Assistants Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists Dental Hygienists Phlebotomists Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses Respiratory Therapists Physician Assistants Radiologic Technologists and Technicians Physical Therapists Registered Nurses Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other Pharmacy Technicians Healthcare Social Workers Child, Family, and School Social Workers Pharmacists Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors Medical and Health Services Managers AI task-overlap percentile → ↑ Median pay
The largest occupations in this cluster with both an AI task-overlap score and a wage, plotted by task-overlap percentile (horizontal) and median-pay percentile (vertical). Overlap measures shared tasks with AI, not automation.

Occupations in this cluster with the most workers nationally (BLS OEWS, May 2024), each linked to its full profile. Employment and pay describe the occupation, not an individual.

Occupation Workers Median pay
Home Health and Personal Care Aides 3,988,140 $34,900
Registered Nurses 3,282,010 $93,600
Nursing Assistants 1,388,430 $39,530
Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants 830,760 $44,640
Medical Assistants 793,460 $44,200
Computer User Support Specialists 697,210 $60,340
Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses 632,430 $62,340
Medical and Health Services Managers 565,840 $117,960
Pharmacy Technicians 487,920 $43,460
Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria 448,260 $36,450
Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors 440,380 $59,190
Social and Human Service Assistants 424,220 $45,120
Child, Family, and School Social Workers 382,960 $58,570
Dental Assistants 375,430 $47,300
Clinical Laboratory Technologists and Technicians 343,040 $61,890
Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors 342,350 $65,140
Pharmacists 328,870 $137,480
Physicians, All Other 315,360
Nurse Practitioners 307,390 $129,210
Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors 303,620 $46,180
Hairdressers, Hairstylists, and Cosmetologists 295,460 $35,250
Food Servers, Nonrestaurant 271,780 $34,460
Physical Therapists 248,630 $101,020
Radiologic Technologists and Technicians 223,460 $77,660
Dental Hygienists 219,070 $94,260
Social and Community Service Managers 195,490 $78,240
Medical Records Specialists 187,910 $50,250
Healthcare Social Workers 185,940 $68,090
Speech-Language Pathologists 178,790 $95,410
Emergency Medical Technicians 177,980 $41,340
Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other 174,060 $48,790
Interviewers, Except Eligibility and Loan 157,310 $43,830
Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists 156,300 $100,590
Physician Assistants 155,540 $133,260
Occupational Therapists 152,280 $98,340
Manicurists and Pedicurists 147,820 $34,660
Phlebotomists 138,880 $43,660
Respiratory Therapists 136,420 $80,450
Psychiatric Technicians 136,300 $42,590
Veterinary Technologists and Technicians 131,320 $45,980

AI exposure across this cluster

Two published studies estimate how exposed each occupation is to today's AI. The OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" study rates the share of an occupation's tasks a large language model (with tools) could speed up by half or more; averaged across this cluster it is 30% — 46th percentile of the 14 clusters. The independent Felten/Raj/Seamans AI Occupational Exposure index averages 0.24 here.

Computed across the 135 of 146 occupations in this cluster that carry a published exposure score.

Exposure measures where AI could assist tasks — it is not a prediction that these jobs will be automated. High exposure most often means augmentation (faster work), and many high-exposure occupations are also projected to grow.

Where the work sits

The framework anchors each cluster to one or more NAICS industry sectors — the parts of the economy where this work concentrates.

Education programs that lead here

A sample of the 766 CIP 2020 instructional programs the framework crosswalks to this cluster — the fields of study that prepare people for this work.

  • Abdominal Radiology Fellowship Program
  • Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
  • Acute Care Medicine Physician Assistant Residency/Fellowship Program
  • Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Residency/Fellowship Program
  • Acute Care Surgery Physician Assistant Residency/Fellowship Program
  • Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program
  • Adolescent Medicine Fellowship Program
  • Adult Development and Aging
  • Adult Health Nurse/Nursing
  • Adult/Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Residency/Fellowship Program
  • Adult/Gerontology Critical Care Nurse Practitioner Residency/Fellowship Program
  • Advanced General Dentistry
  • Advanced/Graduate Dentistry and Oral Sciences, Other
  • Aerospace Medicine Residency Program
  • Aerospace Physiology and Medicine
  • Aesthetician/Esthetician and Skin Care Specialist
  • Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Program
  • Allergy and Immunology Residency/Fellowship Programs, Other
  • Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions, Other
  • Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services, Other
  • Alternative and Complementary Medical Support Services, Other
  • Alternative and Complementary Medicine and Medical Systems, General
  • Alternative and Complementary Medicine and Medical Systems, Other
  • Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Residency/Fellowship Program

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 3, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Healthcare & Human Services." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/clusters/healthcare-human-services

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Healthcare & Human Services. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/clusters/healthcare-human-services

BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-healthcare-human-services,
  title  = {Healthcare & Human Services},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; CIP-2020 2020; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/clusters/healthcare-human-services}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.