Forget the courtroom or the cockpit, when it comes to the career Kiwis secretly wish they had, the turntables are winning. A new global study from digital financial services provider Remitly has found that DJ is New Zealand’s most-searched dream job, ahead of veterinarian and actor.
The research, now in its third edition, analysed Google searches for phrases like “how to be a…” and “how to become a…” across 145 countries and 424 different careers, using search volume as a proxy for which jobs people are most curious and most likely dreaming about.
New Zealand’s full top 10 reads: DJ, veterinarian, actor, YouTuber, CEO, pilot, accountant, doctor, creative writer and lawyer. That mix spans creative passion projects and more traditionally stable professions, suggesting Kiwis’ career fantasies sit somewhere between chasing a passion and chasing security.
Globally, acting has knocked pilot off the top spot worldwide for the first time since the study began in 2022, with 222,080 annual searches for “how to be an actor,” an eight-place jump. Pilot searches, meanwhile, have dropped 49% since 2024, though the role remains the number one dream job in 11 countries including Sweden, Norway and the UAE.
Lawyer was the standout mover globally, climbing an extraordinary 55 places into fourth on the back of a 273% jump in search interest, a shift that researchers link to high-profile real-world cases, legal dramas on streaming platforms, and the rise of legal-tech careers.
YouTuber, meanwhile, remains the world’s most broadly aspirational role, ranking as the number one dream job in 28 countries, more than any other career studied, concentrated heavily across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Perhaps the most telling addition to this year’s data is the emergence of AI roles as a career category in their own right. Searches for “how to be a Prompt Engineer,” “how to be an Artificial Intelligence Specialist” and “how to be a Machine Learning Engineer” all appear in global data for the first time.
Ryan Riley, Remitly’s VP of Marketing for EMEA and APAC, said the data points to two competing instincts: a growing pull toward financial security, reflected in the rise of professions like lawyer and veterinarian, alongside a persistent pull toward passion-driven careers like DJ and YouTuber.
He expects the AI category in particular to shift dramatically in future editions of the study as the technology continues to reshape what people consider a viable career path.
Full results and country-by-country breakdowns are available via Remitly’s dream jobs report at remitly.com.
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