On average, occupations differ in measured IQ — professional groups such as scientists, solicitors and doctors average roughly 110–115, while the lowest-ranked occupations average in the high 80s. But the differences between occupations are much smaller than the differences within them: in the largest recent study, only about a quarter of IQ variance lay between occupations (Wolfram, 2023).
Average IQ by occupation: the data table
The table lists the occupation-level figures we could verify from Wolfram’s (2023) analysis of about 29,000 adults in the UK Understanding Society survey, as tabulated by psychologist James Thompson. The last columns show how precise each mean is (it depends on the number of people) and how many in each group would be expected to score below 100.
| Occupation | N | Est. mean | 95% unc. | Below 100 (model) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical engineers | 9 | 118.4 | ±8.5 | ~8% |
| Physical scientists | 14 | 114.4 | ±6.8 | ~13% |
| Solicitors | 94 | 114.2 | ±2.6 | ~14% |
| Senior police officers | 94 | 113.7 | ±2.6 | ~15% |
| Medical practitioners | 178 | 112.7 | ±1.9 | ~16% |
| Higher education teachers | 125 | 111.4 | ±2.3 | ~19% |
| Programmers & software developers | 181 | 111.2 | ±1.9 | ~19% |
| Actuaries, economists & statisticians | 29 | 110.5 | ±4.7 | ~21% |
| Chartered & certified accountants | 180 | 110.3 | ±1.9 | ~21% |
| Secondary school teachers | 524 | 109.7 | ±1.1 | ~23% |
| Medical radiographers | 29 | 108.9 | ±4.7 | ~25% |
| Nurses | 674 | 100.0 | ±1.0 | ~50% |
Two things stand out. First, sample size matters: the electrical engineers’ 118.4 comes from only nine people, while the nurse and secondary-teacher figures rest on hundreds. Wolfram’s own model-based ranking, which adjusts for small samples, put physical scientists (about 114) at the top and packers, bottlers, canners and fillers (about 87) at the bottom. Second, professional groups cluster tightly between about 109 and 114 — differences that are small compared with the 13-point spread inside each group.
Older data: Wonderlic applicants and WWII Army tests
Linda Gottfredson’s widely cited 1997 review used 1992 Wonderlic Personnel Test data on job applicants. She noted that applicants for jobs such as research analyst and advertising manager had median scores equivalent to an IQ of about 120, accountants and teachers about 112, cashiers, meter readers and tellers about 100, and custodians and material handlers about 90. These are applicant medians, not employee averages, but they line up well with the UK survey.
Much older figures come from the US Army General Classification Test in the Second World War (Stewart, 1947; Harrell & Harrell, 1945), which ranked accountants, engineers, chemists and medical students near the top. They are historically interesting, but AGCT scores are on a different scale, the samples excluded officers, and occupations have changed, so we do not convert them to IQ.
How much does IQ determine your occupation?
Robert Hauser’s analysis of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which followed more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957 and took the Henmon-Nelson test as juniors, found a correlation of only about .39–.44 between measured ability and occupational standing. He also found that the spread of ability inside occupations shrank only slightly as occupational status rose, and that ability mattered mainly through its effect on schooling. Strenze’s (2007) meta-analysis of longitudinal studies reached a similar conclusion: intelligence correlated about .56 with education, .43 with occupational level and .20 with income — the strongest single predictor, but only slightly stronger than parental socioeconomic status and academic performance.
Why we do not publish IQ figures for every job
You will find confident numbers online for pilots, police officers, artists, entrepreneurs, CEOs and dozens of other jobs. For most of them we could not find recent, representative, verifiable data on a modern IQ scale, so we chose not to publish separate pages. Where the only figures are for small, selected subgroups (for example senior police officers, N = 94, about 114), we show them in the table but avoid generalising to the whole profession.
Occupation articles
- Average IQ of doctors
- Average IQ of lawyers
- Average IQ of engineers
- Average IQ of teachers
- Average IQ of programmers
- Average IQ of nurses
- Average IQ of accountants
- Average IQ of scientists
How to read occupational IQ data responsibly
- An occupational average is not an entry requirement. Every group includes people well below and well above it.
- Averages reflect who entered a job in a particular country and decade, which depends on education systems, pay and opportunity — not just on what the job demands.
- Survey batteries are shorter than clinical tests, which adds noise and tends to compress differences.
- Job performance depends on much more than IQ: meta-analytic validity of general mental ability is about .31 in the latest estimates (Sackett et al., 2022), down from the .51 long cited from Schmidt & Hunter (1998).
Sources
- Wolfram, T. (2023). (Not just) intelligence stratifies the occupational hierarchy: Ranking 360 professions by IQ and non-cognitive traits. Intelligence, 98, 101755. Occupation figures as tabulated in J. Thompson, “Minds and professions” (2023).
- Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life. Intelligence, 24(1), 79–132 (Figure 1 uses Wonderlic Personnel Test applicant data, Wonderlic 1992).
- Stewart, N. (1947). AGCT scores of Army personnel grouped by occupation. Occupations, 26, 5–41.
- Harrell, T. W., & Harrell, M. S. (1945). Army General Classification Test scores for civilian occupations. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 5, 229–239.
- Hauser, R. M. (2002). Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success. CDE Working Paper 98-07, University of Wisconsin–Madison (Wisconsin Longitudinal Study).
- Strenze, T. (2007). Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research. Intelligence, 35(5), 401–426.
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262–274.
- Sackett, P. R., Zhang, C., Berry, C. M., & Lievens, F. (2022). Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(11), 2040–2068.
Frequently asked questions
Which occupation has the highest average IQ?
In Wolfram’s (2023) model-based ranking of UK occupations, physical scientists ranked highest at about 114. Small groups such as electrical engineers had higher raw figures but very small samples.
What is the average IQ of professionals?
Professional groups such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers and programmers average roughly 109–114 in recent UK data, and about 112 in US Wonderlic applicant data for accountants and teachers.
How strongly does IQ predict occupation?
Moderately. Correlations between IQ and occupational level are about .4 (Hauser’s Wisconsin data; Strenze’s 2007 meta-analysis), so many people work in jobs above or below what their IQ would predict.
Is there a minimum IQ for any profession?
No profession sets an IQ requirement. Selection is by education, exams and experience, and every occupational group includes a wide range of scores.
Why are there no figures for pilots or entrepreneurs here?
We could not find recent, representative data on a modern IQ scale for those groups, so we do not publish numbers for them.