What can you do with a mathematics degree?
Where mathematics graduates actually work, and how exposed those jobs are to AI. Built from ACS 2020-2024 5-year PUMS: 34,835 people whose bachelor's degree is in this field, aged 22-64.
Mathematics graduates work in a wide spread of jobs, and teaching and software lead. About 7 in 100 people with a mathematics bachelor's degree are secondary school teachers and about 7 in 100 are software developers. Another 4 in 100 teach elementary or middle school. Smaller groups work as management analysts and actuaries, at about 2 in 100 each, and as computer systems analysts, financial managers, school principals and accountants, at 1 to 2 in 100 each.
No single occupation group holds more than about 7 in 100 graduates, so the degree does not lead to one career. Much of the rest sits outside the jobs we score. About 7 in 100 are postsecondary teachers, 4 in 100 are in a Census group called other mathematical science occupations, and another 4 in 100 are managers in other roles. This page covers about 55% of mathematics graduates.
The numbers come from Census data on more than 34,000 people with a mathematics degree, matched to the occupation pages on this site. For a neighbouring degree that leads into the classroom, see secondary education.
How exposed are mathematics jobs to AI?
Mathematics graduates split across jobs we rate differently, so we do not give the degree one verdict. About 47% of the graduates we score work in At risk jobs, such as software developers and management analysts. About 34% work in jobs rated AI-resistant despite the paperwork, led by career and technical education teachers, school principals and actuaries, and about 19% in Safe jobs, led by secondary school teachers. No label reaches the 70% our rule needs.
The evidence on graduates also points both ways: the Census Bureau working paper places mathematics in its most exposed tenth of majors, while Employ America found mathematics unemployment below its pre-pandemic level. We cover only 55% of graduates and have AI usage data for 41% of those, so the honest verdict is Insufficient evidence.
These figures cover the 55% of mathematics graduates who work in occupations we score. The other 45% work in roles we do not cover (largest: Postsecondary Teachers; Other Mathematical Science Occupations; Other Managers). 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 mathematics graduates actually work
These 10 occupations account for 41% of mathematics graduates. The rest are spread across many smaller occupations, each under 1%. Graduates often work outside the field.
Careers next door to mathematics, 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 mathematics graduates
Mathematics is a field where the studies point in different directions. The Census Bureau working paper (CES 26-56, September 2026) places mathematics in its most exposed tenth of majors, with an exposure score about 1. 1 standard deviations above the mean. Its appendix table lists a 2024 employment estimate 1. 5 points below, and an earnings estimate about 5 log points below, the average major's change since 2022.
Employ America (July 2025) listed mathematics among high-exposure majors but found its unemployment lower than before the pandemic. The Dallas Fed names computer science, computer engineering and languages as most exposed and does not mention mathematics.
The Census table counts about 22,500 mathematics graduates from 2018 to 2022, listed apart from applied mathematics and statistics, and it measures early-career outcomes, not later careers. The studies disagree about how much of any graduate weakness is due to AI.
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 "Mathematics" (code 3700), 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, employamerica.org, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov, www.bls.gov. This page is general information, not career or educational advice.