A new CommercialSearch study ranked Madison among the country’s 30 best-positioned metro areas to provide career advancement opportunities for top talent. The rankings were based on 10 metrics, split into two broad categories: education, which included data on average graduation rates, student to teacher ratio, and the quality of universities within each metro area; and labor market conditions, including job mobility, percentage of high-skill jobs, and unemployment rates.
Madison is one of four Midwestern metro areas to make the cut for the country’s top 30 metros for career development, with a total of 49 points. It outranked St. Louis, Missouri, and Columbus, Ohio.
Madison came fourth on CommercialSearch’s list in terms of graduation rate, with 76.7% of its full-time students completing a six-year degree or certification. The metro had the fifth-lowest unemployment rate at 2.7%. Madison is also one of only two Midwestern metros among the list to hit the $100,000 mark for average wage of highly-qualified workers, coming in at $105,000 per year and outranking Chicago.
The complete study is available here.
