TOP 5 Study Fields For a Successful Career, With IT and Medicine Sharing First Place

A new study by Unicorns Lithuania has shown that 6 out of 10 Lithuanian residents would recommend their child or relative graduating from high school to study IT, which they see as the most conducive to a successful and financially secure career.

Next in line were medicine (35% of respondents), engineering (27%), economics/business management (24%), and legal (24%), based on a multiple choice survey filled out by the study participants. 

It should be noted, however, that a successful career was this year more closely associated with medicine, economics/business management, and legal studies, whereas engineering and biochemistry studies decreased in popularity compared to last year. What’s interesting is that IT, programming, and biochemistry studies were chosen primarily by the most educated and high-income participants, as well as residents of the largest cities and regional centres. Economics studies, on the other hand, were picked mostly by the less educated rural cohort, and legal studies were the most popular with less educated and lower-income respondents. 

“IT and programming studies are still associated with a successful career and remain the most-recommended study field. That being said, it’s apparent to us that social attitudes towards what constitutes the most promising occupation changes very slowly and doesn’t always keep up with the future market demand,” said Inga Langaitė, CEO of Unicorns Lithuania.

As many as 77% of respondents “would recommend” or “would likely recommend” their relatives graduating from high school to work at a startup.

As many as 77% of respondents “would recommend” or “would likely recommend” their relatives graduating from high school to work at a startup. Among the most frequently named benefits were new and substantial career prospects (27%), pursuit of unique experiences and professional growth (17%), and interesting work for high pay (8% each). The biggest disadvantages were identified as risk, instability, and uncertainty (9% this year, compared to 6% in 2021). 

“In Lithuania, work at startups is still approached only with cautious optimism. Even though our most successful startups have been going strong for over 10 years, and despite having built a mature ecosystem, this word often remains coupled with risk. In our estimation, people are attracted to startups due to the major opportunities they offer, and put off by associated risks,“ Inga Langaitė said. 

According to the Association of Lithuanian Higher Education Institutions for Common Admission (LAMA BPO), most applicants picked social, health science, business, and public management studies as their first priority, although this trend is already ebbing. It’s also interesting to note that in 2022 the number of high school graduates who both applied, and were admitted, to computer science programmes rose by 10%.

The representative survey of Lithuanian residents was commissioned by Unicorns Lithuania and carried out in July by Sprinter Research. Total number of respondents – 1,013 (ages 18- 75).

Unicorns Lithuania represents over 50 Lithuania startups, including: Vinted, Tesonet, KiloHealth, Hostinger, Bored Panda, Omnisend, Tech zity, PVcase, Trafi, TransferGo, Whatagraph, Litilit, Furniture1, Oxylabs, Surfshark, and others.