Sorry to break it to you, but not everyone can be an astronaut. According to one study, the odds of becoming a NASA astronaut are 1 in 14,278. In fact, according to Casumo, you are 1.43 times more likely to parent triplets than gaining a STEM master’s degree and successfully becoming a spaceman. And Casumo should know. They are in the business of finding the odds after all. Founded in Sweden, the company is known for becoming an innovative online casino and sports betting operator in Europe.

But becoming an astronaut isn’t the hardest dream job to land. The chances of you ever becoming a premier league soccer player (or footballer in this case) is 1 in 134,162. And while you enjoy getting hits on your YouTube channel, the odds of you becoming the next YouTube star with more than 500,000 subscribers is about 1 in 179,361. Believe it or not, you are more likely to become model (1 in 6,708), dancer (1 in 7,136) or even a spy (1 in 7,208) than one of the above occupations. (Then again, how do they really know about that last one? Isn’t the whole point of becoming a spy is to never be found out?) But the granddaddy of all dream jobs which is nearly impossible to achieve is that of the role of prime minister with is 1 in 67,081,000.

The Most Popular Dream Jobs

According to the study, the most desired dream job for 2022 is becoming a pilot, which is a little more achievable with the odds of 1 in 3,440. You can thank Top Gun: Maverick for that. It’s not surprising that the 11^th highest grossing film has been inspiring audiences. After one month after the film was released, Google saw searches for “how to become a pilot” increase by 22%. Casumo also says that Netflix’s series, Selling Sunset is to thank for second dream job search for real estate agent.

Not all dream jobs are out of reach though. The study also includes a list of the most achievable dream jobs. The third most achievable occupation is that of software engineer with the odds of 1 in 144 and the second most achievable based on this study is nurse (1 in 133). But here’s the kicker – the #1 desired dream job that can come true for those who really want it, is for teacher. The odds are lot friendlier to – 1 in 41.

So What About that Astronaut?

So, why is it so hard to become an astronaut? Well, for starters, NASA received more than 12,000 applications for the 10 spots they had available to train astronauts in 2021. To be eligible to even apply for a spot, you had to have a master’s degree in a specialist subject. As it turned out, only 843,450 students in the entire country gained master’s degrees in 2019/20.

From there, the Astronaut Rating Panel reviewed each application to narrow down the most highly qualified people, which came to about 500 applicants. Of course, they had to run reference checks on each one to make sure they had a clean criminal record and were known as having the desired characteristics for an astronaut.

The Astronaut Selection Board then narrowed that group down to 120 people, who were all invited to Johnson Space Center for interviews and medical tests during the course of six weeks.

From there, about 30 of those candidates were invited back for a second round of interviews and more testing. The final 10 were selected following those interviews, and went on to become NASA astronauts.

How Did They Come Up with These Findings?

Data looking at the number of people in a range of popular occupations was collected from the NOMIS database. The number of people in each occupation was then divided by the total UK population (67081000), to give the probability of a randomly selected UK citizen of having that occupation. Where data for the job was unavailable, other sources were used. The number of UK channels with 500k+ subscribers were used to calculate the probability of becoming a YouTuber. For spies, the number of employees in Mi5 and Mi6 were used.

After this, data looking at events with similar odds was pulled from different sources and was then compared against the probabilities of achieving certain jobs. The odds of achieving certain jobs were also compared against the odds of achieving other related jobs.