Separate facts from planning assumptions
Official fields retain their source edition, geography, unit, period, publication date, and review date. PathGauge editorial fields—such as a planning range for training months—are labeled separately and are never inserted into an official dataset.
U.S. career measures
National employment, 2024 median annual wages, 2024–34 growth, annual openings, entry education, related experience, and on-the-job training come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections table. Employment counts in the source are thousands; annual openings are converted to people by multiplying the source value by 1,000.
What the numbers mean
- Median annual wage: half of workers earned more and half earned less in the stated wage year. It is not a starting wage.
- Growth: projected percentage change in employment over the stated period. It is not an individual hiring probability.
- Annual openings: average openings from growth and replacement needs. It is not the number of current vacancies.
- Typical education: the level BLS assigns for entry into the occupation; individual employers may differ.
Credential facts
Fees, eligibility, validity, and renewal rules are taken from the issuing organization or regulator. A null fee means there is no single verified fixed amount, not that the route is free. Local license requirements are not inferred from a national credential.
Deterministic calculators
The training investment tool adds user-entered cash costs, subtracts aid, and adds user-entered foregone earnings. Its break-even illustration divides that investment by the user-entered weekly earnings difference only when the difference is positive. The study planner allocates user-entered time in proportion to displayed topic weights. No calculator produces a pass probability or job-placement score.
Quality controls
Builds fail on duplicate slugs, missing records, implausible numeric ranges, unknown units, invalid source domains, broken internal links, malformed structured data, duplicate titles or descriptions, and an unexpected sitemap count.