Shortages and pay shape the fastest-growing school jobs

fastest-growing education – New federal data points to a decade of fastest job growth in schools for substitute teachers, therapy specialists and some tech roles—while state and school leaders warn that hiring, especially for low-paid support positions, is still brutally hard as student

For many people, the new school year starts with tidy classrooms and the quiet relief of knowing schedules are set. But inside school districts, another calendar is ticking: hiring. And new federal data suggests the jobs seeing the biggest growth over the next decade won’t mostly be the ones students picture—like the lead classroom teacher.

Instead, the biggest net increases are projected for supporting roles such as substitute teachers, therapists and technologists. Those expectations come as districts absorb two major shifts at the same time: changes in student enrollment and the winding down of federal school emergency funds. Budget deficits are already forcing cuts in some places. and the strain is making it harder to fill roles schools say they need.

The clearest tension runs through the staffing outlook itself—on paper, some jobs will grow fast. In practice, schools still struggle to hire and keep enough people for them.

When the projected growth is highest, it starts with substitutes

The top of the growth list—looking at 10 education roles gaining the most net jobs by 2034—goes to short-term substitute teachers. The increase projected is more than 10,000 jobs.

But growth rankings don’t tell the whole story of who’s available to take those jobs. Malia Hite, Utah State Board of Education’s executive coordinator of education licensing, points to how uneven the picture is across sectors.

In Utah, Hite says the state is expected to see increases in jobs for teacher assistants and paraeducators—roles that support student behavior and early literacy—driven by an infusion of state and federal funds.

She adds a blunt caveat: even with that support, recruiting is difficult, especially in early childhood education.

“However. I will say that those positions. because those positions are typically an entry-level position with a low wage or part-time. they’re hard positions to fill. ” Hite says. “Even in the current job market. [where] it’s hard to find positions. we’re still seeing openings in our paraeducator job market statewide. Some of them are making $9 an hour. so why would I do that when I can go somewhere else and make $15 in an entry-level position?”.

Hite doesn’t minimize the math behind job-growth projections, but she argues the hiring reality is shaped by pay and access to other work.

Enrollment declines and emergency-fund endings complicate everything

Hite also links staffing expectations to student enrollment trends. She says Utah is in its second year of decreasing student enrollment, which means districts need fewer teachers and face less funding.

“So in that way, there’s no way that education jobs are going to grow,” she says, explaining that lower enrollment can lead to schools closing.

Across the country, technology staffing is another flashpoint. A report from the Consortium for School Networking, a professional organization for K-12 tech leaders, found schools struggle to retain IT staff across all specialties and levels.

Among the school leaders the group polled, 16 percent said they were in danger of losing IT staff because federal relief money allocated to schools during the pandemic is winding down.

Even where job-growth projections exist, the pressure on districts is to keep current staff while finding replacements.

Therapy roles and technology roles fill out the “growth” picture

The rest of the projected list is more heavily weighted toward health therapy roles and technology roles.

A recent analysis by staffing company ProTherapy predicts physical therapist assistants, speech-language pathologists and physical therapists will be among the most in-demand education jobs of 2026, continuing into the following years with double-digit percentage growth.

The workforce need isn’t abstract. Schools employ physical therapists and assistants to help students with disabilities participate in school activities. Speech-language pathologists support students with communication disorders.

Dakota Long, who headed ProTherapy’s 2026 School Workforce Demand Index, ties the demand to school systems trying to identify students with disabilities and set up interventions early—sometimes as early as age 3 in some schools.

But Long also points to the pull of the broader job market.

While teacher graduates are overwhelmingly likely to work in the classroom, newly trained health care workers can also be recruited by jobs in hospitals, clinics and home health agencies in addition to schools.

“From my perspective in working with schools, they’re wanting to identify those things early on,” Long says. “That way they can provide the best services for these kiddos before it gets to age 7. 8. and then they realize. ‘Oh gosh. we could have been supplying these services earlier.’ So you have early intervention. more kiddos needing these services. but then employees that could be taking on these roles have a lot of different options. as well.”.

In other words: the need is growing in schools, but so is competition for the people who can fill those specialist roles.

Even in fast-growth categories, Hite warns to look closer

Hite says Utah expects non-teacher jobs to increase, but she cautions against reading growth projections too literally without accounting for what the numbers represent.

“If I look at the subsector of audiologist, we had two [full-time employees] six years ago, and now we have 11,” she says. “We’re talking about 10 people.”

The difference between a small base and a larger one can make growth rates look dramatic—without necessarily reflecting the scale districts feel when they try to staff classrooms, therapy programs, and support services.

The bottom line, as districts head into another school year, is that the jobs likely to grow fastest are often the ones where schools face the toughest trade-offs: hiring specialists, retaining IT staff, and filling entry-level support roles where pay and job security can push workers elsewhere.

education jobs substitute teachers paraeducators speech-language pathologists physical therapist assistants physical therapists audiologist IT staffing K-12 tech leaders federal school emergency funds student enrollment decline ProTherapy Utah State Board of Education