What can you do with a computer science degree?
Where computer science graduates actually work, and how exposed those jobs are to AI. Built from ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS: 80,698 people whose bachelor's degree is in this field, aged 22-64.
Computer science leads to one job more than any other. About 30 in 100 people with a computer science bachelor's degree work as software developers. The next largest groups are far smaller: computer and information systems managers at about 4 in 100, computer systems analysts and management analysts at about 2 in 100 each, and project management specialists at about 1 in 100. No other occupation we cover employs even 1 in 100.
A large share sits outside the jobs we score. The biggest groups are managers in other roles, computer occupations not listed elsewhere and computer programmers, each about 4 in 100, followed by computer support specialists at about 2 in 100. We have no pages for those yet. This page covers about 58% of computer science graduates. The numbers come from Census data on more than 80,000 people with a computer science degree, matched to the occupation pages on this site.
How exposed are computer science jobs to AI?
We publish Insufficient evidence for computer science because our pages cover only about 58% of graduates, below the 60% we need to give a verdict, and because the research on this field is contested. What we can say is about the jobs we do score. The largest group, about 30 in 100 graduates, are software developers, a job we rate At risk with an estimated 83 out of 100 structural exposure.
Computer and information systems managers (88) and computer systems analysts (84) are rated At risk too, and about 83 in 100 of the graduates in jobs we score are in At risk jobs.
This page does not show how graduates have fared. BLS projects 10% growth for software developers and 16% for IT managers through 2035. The Census Bureau working paper finds some of the weakest early outcomes of any major in computer science, while the NBER paper finds no spike in recent-graduate unemployment overall. The remaining 42% of graduates, including programmers and support specialists, have no score here.
These figures cover the 58% of computer science graduates who work in occupations we score. The other 42% work in roles we do not cover (largest: Other Managers; Computer Occupations, all Other; Computer Programmers). Signal 01 averages each job's own structural exposure, weighted by how many graduates work there; it describes tasks, not whether jobs will disappear.
Where computer science graduates actually work
These 10 occupations account for 55% of computer science graduates. The rest are spread across many smaller occupations, each under 1%. Graduates often work outside the field.
Careers next door to computer science, least exposed first
Curated related careers of the main occupations above, ranked by structural exposure (lowest first), so you can see which neighboring routes are less and more exposed.
What the research says about AI and computer science graduates
Computer science is the degree the studies single out. The Census Bureau working paper (September 2026) puts it in the most exposed tenth of majors and names computer science, computer and information systems, and computer engineering as the three majors with the largest employment declines for 2024 graduates, very small fields aside.
The Dallas Fed also lists computer science among its most exposed majors, using Texas public university data, and notes that two-thirds of 2024 computer science graduates who went back to school chose a computer science graduate program.
The other sources are less alarming. Employ America (July 2025) acknowledges higher unemployment for computer science but argues AI is not the best explanation, pointing to labor supply, slower hiring and the 2022 tech downturn. The NBER paper finds no spike in recent-graduate unemployment in summer 2026 and reports no results by major. The Census authors add that graduate school and self-employment could explain up to half of the employment gap in the most exposed group.
The studies disagree about how much is due to AI. For a neighboring field, see computer engineering.
Read the full evidence review: what the studies say about AI and graduate jobs →
Degrees whose graduates work in similar jobs
How this page was built
Graduate shares come from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS), field of degree "Computer Science" (code 2102), weighted to the population. Each occupation we cover is scored with the numbers already published on its own page on this site, then averaged by graduate share. Occupations without a page are shown but never scored. Graduates aged 22-64 are included, so the mix reflects the whole working-age group, not only recent graduates. The survey records the most recent occupation of people who were not working when surveyed (unemployed or out of the labor force), and they are counted in it: across the degrees on this site that is about 9 in 100 graduates, between 6 and 13 in 100 depending on the degree, so "work as" on this page means "work or last worked as". Sources: www2.census.gov, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov, www2.census.gov, www.dallasfed.org, www.nber.org, employamerica.org. This page is general information, not career or educational advice.