A LinkedIn survey has found that law is the sixth most common dream job, making it a more widely held aspiration than becoming an astronaut, writer or professional athlete.
But as you can see in the list below, law (the dream job of 3.9% of those surveyed) is no match for engineering (7.7%) or being a pilot (7%) – the two most popular childhood career dreams in the survey of 8,000 professionals worldwide…
Top 10 most common childhood dream jobs (source: LinkedIn)
1. Engineer (7.7%)
2. Airplane or helicopter pilot (7%)
3. Doctor, nurse or EMT (6.7%)
4. Scientist (6.2%)
5. Teacher (5.8%)
6. Lawyer (3.9%)
7. Writer, journalist or novelist (3.7%)
8. Astronaut (3.2%)
9. Veterinarian (3%)
10. Professional or Olympic athlete; Actors (both 2.7%)
Taken as a whole, the results mean that a mere 8.9% of those surveyed work in their childhood dream job, although an additional 21% said they at least work in a career that relates to their original dream job.
Almost half of those who didn’t realise their childhood professional dreams said this was because they became interested in a different career as they got older, while 16% put it down to their dream job being either too difficult or too expensive to pursue.
