Upon guidance from the NC Department of Public Instruction and NC Community Colleges, NCcareers has updated its Career Clusters and Career Cluster Match to align with the modernized National Career Clusters Framework from Advance CTE. The new framework reflects how careers and industries are changing and gives students and job seekers another way to explore the world of work.
What are Career Clusters?
Career Clusters are groups of related types of work. They make it easier to explore a wide range of occupations by organizing careers into broad areas based on the world of work. Typically, if you like an occupation in one cluster you might also like other occupations in that same one.
Advance CTE’s modernized framework includes 14 Career Clusters and 72 Sub-Clusters, organized into six broader groupings. Three of the clusters, Computer Science & Digital Technology, Marketing & Sales, and Management & Entrepreneurship, are considered Cross-Cutting Clusters because careers in these areas can be found across many industries.
The 14 clusters are:
Advanced Manufacturing
Agriculture
Arts, Entertainment, & Design
Computer Science & Digital Technology
Construction
Education
Energy & Natural Resources
Financial Services
Healthcare & Human Services
Hospitality, Events, & Tourism
Management & Entrepreneurship
Marketing & Sales
Public Service & Safety
Supply Chain & Transportation
What are the differences from the old cluster framework?
1. The previous taxonomy included 16 Career Clusters
2. Previously, one occupation was tied to one career cluster, while the new taxonomy ties occupations to multiple clusters.
Find your Career Cluster Match
Not sure which careers might be right for you? The updated Career Cluster Match assessment can help you explore. Answer questions about the types of activities and work that interest you, and you’ll receive Career Cluster results to help guide your career exploration.
Use your results as a starting point. Explore the occupations within your recommended clusters and learn about their skills, education and training requirements, wages, employment outlook and more.
What if you’ve used the old Career Clusters?
If you’ve used NCcareers before, you may recognize the original 16 Career Clusters. We’ve kept those “Legacy Clusters” and the original Career Cluster Match assessment available during the transition to the new framework. The Legacy Clusters will remain available through the 2026–27 school year and will be removed during the summer of 2027.
If you previously completed the old Career Cluster Match assessment, your results will not automatically convert to the new framework. To explore your results using the modernized Career Clusters, you’ll need to take the updated Career Cluster Match assessment.