Operations Research Tops in Lifetime Salary Rankings

Those of us who work in operations research and related disciplines do it because we love what we do -- what could be more exciting than solving fascinating real-world problems and also, hopefully, doing "some good," through the process, as well, whether as professors, researchers, consultants, or more applied professionals from logisticians to market and financial analysts to computer programmers and data scientists.

Now The Telegraph, the British newspaper, is reporting that Operational Research (this is how the British spell Operations Research)  is also among the top lifetime earnings careers!

See more on this great news on this link.

According to The Telegraph:  The salary shown is the average from graduation to age 65 of people with that degree, based on starting data from Higher Education Statistics Agency, and continuing lifetime salary data from the Office of National Statistics. Starting salaries of people who study part time are excluded.  The data are from the 1.5 million students who have responded to a University leavers' questionnaire over the last five years ( Where data is more than one year old it is RPI adjusted). Data compiled by BestCourse4Me.com. 

Interestingly, the only other business type degree that made the top ten list was that of industrial relations.

 I might add that, personally, I have an example of one such super success story and with a British connection. One of my former doctoral students, Dr. Stavros Siokos, with whom I co-authored the Financial Networks book, is now the CEO of Sciens Capital Management, and is based in London, England.

He has told me that he attributes part of his success to his knowledge of operations research and the management sciences and he received his PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UMass Amherst. I chaired his doctoral dissertation committee.

It is important to note that in various countries operations research / management science may be housed in Business Schools or in Schools of Engineering, sometimes with such programs on the very same university campus.