What are the best jobs to pursue for the next five years? Fast Company draws on the work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and an innovation expert to tap the top jobs.

What makes a job a great job? Obviously, different people will give different answers. It’s impossible to account for everyone’s personal taste and personality traits — including foibles — and how they might fit into a particular job. What makes a great job opportunity is much easier to gauge. How much do you get paid? What kind of professional development opportunities are available? How much room for innovation does a role offer?

Fast Company based this year’s index of the top jobs on four categories: job growth, salary potential, education level, and room for innovation. Relying heavily on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the work of Dr. Kevin Stolarick, a lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on the creative class, Fast Company has assembled a list of the 25 Top Jobs for 2005.

What We Considered

Clearly, you want to pick a career that’s in high demand. Because job growth is so important, we weighted our index 35% toward the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s projected job growth data through 2012.

Money also matters. We based our salary range — an indication of the opportunity for salary growth — on the difference between the 10th percentile earnings and the 90th percentile earnings for a given job, also based on BLS data. This gives a picture of where you might end up in relation to where you started. The greater the divide, the better the score. Salary range was also given a 35% share of the total index score.

A great job, in our opinion, also requires a good deal of investment in education. Our education score is based on what percentage of those working in the field hold a college degree according to BLS data. We weighted this 20%.

Finally, a great job needs to give you room to run. How innovative and creative can you be? How open to new ideas are people in your profession? We turned to Dr. Kevin Stolarick to help determine how creative workers can be in a given field. We weighted this 10%.

The Jobs

* Personal finance adviser
* Medical scientist
* Computer software engineer
* Chiropractor
* Environmental engineer
* Biochemist and biophysicist
* Sales manager
* Epidemiologist
* Computer system analyst
* Athlete
* Agent and business manager for artists, performers, and athletes
* Marketing manager
* Producer and director
* Actor
* Lawyer
* Advertising and promotions manager
* Management analyst
* Postsecondary education administrator
* Financial manager
* Actuary
* Airline pilot, copilot, and flight engineer
* Geoscientist
* Market research analyst
* Securities sales agent
* Medical and health services manager