What can you do with a kinesiology, fitness and recreation degree?
Where kinesiology, fitness and recreation graduates actually work, and how exposed those jobs are to AI. Built from ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS: 42,199 people whose bachelor's degree is in this field, aged 22-64.
A kinesiology, fitness and recreation degree's largest destinations are health and teaching jobs, with fitness work a smaller share than the name suggests. About 5 in 100 people with this bachelor's degree work as physical therapists, a job that BLS says requires a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Another 4 in 100 are elementary and middle school teachers and 3 in 100 are secondary school teachers.
Fitness and sport come next. About 2 in 100 work as personal trainers or group fitness instructors and about 2 in 100 as coaches and scouts. Registered nurses, physicians, customer service representatives and school administrators are each around 2 in 100.
This page covers about 56% of graduates. The largest groups we do not cover are managers in other roles (about 3 in 100), retail salespersons and physical therapist assistants and aides (about 2 in 100 each). The numbers come from Census data on more than 42,000 people with this degree, matched to the occupation pages on this site. For a closely related degree, see treatment therapy professions.
How exposed are kinesiology, fitness and recreation jobs to AI?
We do not give this degree a single verdict. Of the graduates in jobs we could score, about 40 in 100 work in AI-resistant despite the paperwork jobs, led by physical therapists, registered nurses and elementary teachers. Another 31 in 100 are in Safe jobs, including personal trainers, athletic coaches and secondary school teachers. The remaining 28 in 100 are in jobs we rate At risk, such as customer service representatives and general and operations managers.
The tilt toward protected jobs is real, but our rule asks for coverage of at least 60% before it gives a protective label, and this page covers 56%. Two cautions apply. Physical therapy, the largest destination, needs a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree beyond the bachelor's, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And digital platforms such as Hinge Health already offer app-based physical therapy for joint and muscle pain, one segment of the work.
Our confidence is insufficient to name one label.
These figures cover the 56% of kinesiology, fitness and recreation graduates who work in occupations we score. The other 44% work in roles we do not cover (largest: Other Managers; Retail Salespersons; Physical Therapist Assistants and Aides). 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 kinesiology, fitness and recreation graduates actually work
These 10 occupations account for 27% of kinesiology, fitness and recreation graduates. The rest are spread across many smaller occupations, each under 1%. Graduates often work outside the field.
What the research says about AI and kinesiology, fitness and recreation graduates
The Census Bureau working paper (CES 26-56, September 2026, not yet through Census publication review) lists this field as Physical Fitness, Parks, Recreation and Leisure. Its appendix table places the field in the second-lowest of ten AI exposure groups and counts about 100,000 graduates from 2018 to 2022. Its 2024 employment estimate is slightly above the average major's change since 2022, and its earnings estimate is slightly below it. The paper finds its sharpest declines in software-related degrees, not here.
The Dallas Fed names computer science, computer engineering and languages as most exposed and does not mention this field. Employ America and the NBER paper discuss no fitness or kinesiology majors. The studies disagree on the cause of any weakness among recent graduates, and none of them reports results for personal trainer, coach or physical therapist jobs. Read the Census result as a statement about exposure scores and past outcomes, not a forecast.
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 "Physical Fitness Parks Recreation And Leisure" (code 4101), 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, www2.census.gov, www.dallasfed.org, www.nber.org, employamerica.org, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov. This page is general information, not career or educational advice.