Want a good job in Vermont? Here's your list.

There aren't any jobs in Vermont, and even if you manage to find gainful employment the pay will be lousy. Right?

Wrong, according to a study released in January — Pathways to Promising Careers — by the Vermont Department of Labor and the J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation, which claims to have identified 62 "high-pay, high-demand" jobs in the state.

Each job pays a median wage of at least $20 an hour and is projected to have at least 250 openings over the next decade.

Here are the top jobs in terms of overall demand:

• Carpenters
• Registered nurses
• Accountants and auditors
• Sales reps
• Insurance agents
• Social workers

Here are the highest paying jobs:

• Engineers
• Nurse practitioners
• Physician assistants
• Physical therapists
• Lawyers
• Computer system analysts
• Financial services sales agents
• Clinical and school psychologists

"We're out here doing a little bit of myth-busting about things we often hear in headlines and from friends and coworkers that there are not good paying jobs in the state," said Carolyn Weir, senior philanthropic advisor to the McClure Foundation. 

Weir says she hears the state's manufacturing sector is dead. She hears that we have to attract new residents and workers to fill what jobs there are. She rejects both.

"We see Vermont's most valuable resource as Vermonters," Weir said.

Are you organized and detail-oriented?

The jobs report is broken down into four sections of careers, based on what the job seeker sees as her strengths. For example, the section that includes police officers, web developers and lawyers, among 11 other jobs, is for those who say, "I am organized and detail-oriented and I like to work with lots of information."

Massage therapists top the list of jobs for those who like to "observe, learn, analyze and solve problems," with 1,210 projected openings in the next 10 years, and a median pay of $23 an hour, or $48,400 yearly. You'll have to complete a certification program at one of several massage schools in the state.

Rod Cain has been a massage therapist for 27 years and has his own business, Rod Cain Massage Therapy, employing four therapists. Cain said the median pay listed in the Pathways report for massage therapists is "not too far off," although he makes quite a bit more, given that he's an entrepreneur as well as a massage therapist.

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Providing massage therapy is physically and mentally demanding, Cain said, and tends not to be a 9 to 5 job. Massage therapists typically reach that $48,000 annual salary working fewer hours than in other jobs, he said.

"To be a really good massage therapist you have to be very focused," Cain said. "I often describe it as meditating. Your hands develop empathy with the body, but the only way to get there is to be truly present. You can't be thinking about what you're going to have for lunch."

Cain sees a solid future for massage therapy in Vermont, especially if private insurance companies finally begin paying for it.

"Even though some people consider it a luxury, Vermonters really value alternative medicine and wellness and self-care," Cain said.

Where the cool kids and companies are

The Pathways report estimates there will be openings for 1,780 software developers in the next 10 years, a number that David Bradbury, president of the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, found to be "grossly" underestimated.

Bradbury projects the need for 10,000 software developers in Vermont over the next 10 years, nearly six times the Pathways number.

"I think the rate of change happening across all sectors (of business) is going to require more software skills to operate machinery and create code," Bradbury said. "Nationally it's difficult to find talent, that's the stage we're at. Are we any worse than other locations? I don't know."

Pathways puts the median wage for software developers at $45 an hour or $93,200 annually, numbers that Bradbury says are accurate.

"What wages don't capture with tech companies is the opportunity to have ownership via stock options," Bradbury said. "Think what that did for companies like Green Mountain Coffee, Dealer.com and IDX. It creates massive wealth that can circulate into our economy."

Bradbury agrees with the premise behind the Pathways report that Vermont needs to challenge the conventional wisdom that it has a terrible job market. He points to his own experience teaching an entrepreneurship course at Middlebury College. As part of the course, Bradbury brings students to Burlington to visit local companies.

This year, he said, he took his students to Burton Snowboards, Dealer.com, and Mamava, and they were "blown away" by what they saw in terms of company culture and mission.

"They were surprised these companies were here," Bradbury said.

There were two Vermonters among the group of students he brought to Burlington, as well as students from Afghanistan, Connecticut, California, Florida and "all over." While he was surprised that even the Vermonters were unaware of the Burlington business scene, Bradbury said everybody needs to come together to find a way to get a message out to the wider world.

"Vermont has got to look like where the cool kids want to go and the cool companies want to go," Bradbury said.

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDambrosioVT.