Teaching is the most popular dream job for middle and high school students in South Korea, according to the findings of an annual survey released Thursday.

The Ministry of Education and the Korea Vocational Competency Research Institute surveyed 37-thousand-408 students, parents, and teachers at one-thousand-200 schools across the country online from May 16 to June 13.

The top job picked by elementary school students in the 2025 survey on career education was athlete, for the eighth year running, followed by doctor, creator, teacher and chef.

Middle school students said their dream is to become a teacher, while professional athlete came in second, followed by doctor, police officer or investigator and nurse.

Teacher was also the most popular job among high schoolers, followed by nurse, life scientist and researcher and technical positions in the health and medical fields, while police officer or investigator came in fifth place.

Teaching has consistently been at the top of the list since the survey became a state-approved statistic in 2015.

The data also showed that middle school students accounted for the highest percentage of those who did not have a desired job at 40-point-one percent, followed by high school students at 28-point-seven percent and elementary school students at 21-point-nine percent.

Among this group, most students said they did not know what kind of job they liked yet.

When high school students were asked about their career plans after graduation, 64-point-nine percent said they were going to college, down from the 66-point-five percent recorded a year ago.

On the other hand, those who had hopes for employment rose two-point-three percentage points to 15-point-six percent, while those who were undecided about their career fell zero-point-eight percentage points to eleven-point-two percent.

The proportion of high school students who said they wish to start a business after graduation was three-point-three percent, the same as a year ago.