High school teachers are below average when it comes to happiness.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, high school teachers rate their career happiness 3.0 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 35% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy high school teachers are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Childcare worker | 3.2 | $27k |
| Preschool teacher | 3.2 | $30k |
| Special education teacher | 3.1 | $53k |
| Teacher | 3.0 | $61k |
| Kindergarten teacher | 3.0 | $61k |
| High school teacher | 3.0 | $62k |
| School psychologist | 3.0 | $80k |
| Elementary school teacher | 2.9 | $61k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are high school teachers happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do high school teachers find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as high school teachers?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are high school teacher’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are high school teachers making the best use of their abilities?
Are high school teachers happy with their salary?
High school teachers rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.7/5. High school teachers tend to be quite unhappy with their salary, with very few reporting satisfaction with their pay.
We asked high school teachers how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.7 out of 5 stars
560 high school teachers
9% of high school teachers rated their compensation 5 stars
17% of high school teachers rated their compensation 4 stars
28% of high school teachers rated their compensation 3 stars
25% of high school teachers rated their compensation 2 stars
21% of high school teachers rated their compensation 1 stars
Do high school teachers find their jobs meaningful?
On average, high school teachers rate the meaningfulness of their work a 3.6/5. Unlike many careers, high school teachers have little difficulty finding meaning in their work, and it likely constitutes one of the main reasons people become high school teachers.
We asked high school teachers how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
558 high school teachers
29% of high school teachers rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
32% of high school teachers rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
18% of high school teachers rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
12% of high school teachers rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
9% of high school teachers rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as high school teachers?
High school teachers rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.8/5. The majority of high school teachers find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked high school teachers how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.8 out of 5 stars
665 high school teachers
29% of high school teachers rated their career fit 5 stars
38% of high school teachers rated their career fit 4 stars
18% of high school teachers rated their career fit 3 stars
10% of high school teachers rated their career fit 2 stars
5% of high school teachers rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a high school teacher’s work environment?
As a whole, high school teachers rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.4/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked high school teachers how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.4 out of 5 stars
665 high school teachers
17% of high school teachers rated their work environment 5 stars
32% of high school teachers rated their work environment 4 stars
26% of high school teachers rated their work environment 3 stars
17% of high school teachers rated their work environment 2 stars
7% of high school teachers rated their work environment 1 stars
Are high school teachers making the best use of their abilities?
Former high school teachers on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 3.3/5. Most high school teachers are satisfied with how well their abilities are skills are made of use.
We asked high school teachers how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
669 high school teachers
19% of high school teachers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
29% of high school teachers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
25% of high school teachers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
19% of high school teachers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
9% of high school teachers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars