Math is critically important in both education and everyday life. You’ll need math to develop a budget, buy a home and manage debt, for example. Many jobs require strong math skills as well.
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Approved and verified accurate by the Assistant Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences on Sept. 11, 2025.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Grand Canyon University. Any sources cited were accurate as of the publish date.
You’ll need basic math skills to be able to develop and adhere to a budget. Without math skills, you may discover that you overspend on discretionary purchases, leaving you unable to save enough money or pay all of your bills each month. Beyond budgeting, math skills are important for making important financial decisions, such as buying a home, managing debt, investing and exploring health insurance options.
Math skills are essential for interpreting everyday data. Whether you're tracking your monthly expenses, comparing grocery prices, or analyzing your fitness progress, you rely on math to make informed decisions. For example, when reviewing your spending habits, you might calculate percentage changes in your budget, identify trends in your purchases or interpret graphs from a budgeting app to decide where to cut costs or save more effectively.
It’s important to realize, as well, that figuring out calculations isn’t the only math skill needed in daily life. Mathematics teaches a wide variety of other important skills, such as:1
Individuals who refine these important soft skills through mathematics education may be able to apply them to a wide range of situations in daily life.
Most jobs require at least basic math skills, even jobs not in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. For example, police officers may deal with community crime statistics, hospital nurses calculate dosages of intravenous medications, truck drivers calculate load weights and office managers develop budgets.2 In short, even if you don’t plan on entering a career that places a heavy emphasis on math skills, there is a good chance you’ll need to perform some basic calculations at some point.
Many careers, however, rely heavily on math skills. Many of the jobs that use math every day are in the STEM field, but not all.
Some examples of jobs that lean heavily on mathematics skills include the following:3
It can be clear to see why some professions require strong math skills, such as jobs in accounting, medicine, finance and business analytics.2 Yet, there are also plenty of jobs that routinely use math in ways that might surprise you.
Farmers, for example, rely heavily on math skills to perform tasks such as figuring out how much and what concentration of fertilizer to apply to their crops, or calculating how many workers they will need to harvest the crops during any given year. Carpenters, air traffic controllers and even musicians are other examples of careers that require mathematics.2
The ability to problem solve and do calculations is essential for fields such as the natural sciences, engineering, economics and even art. Why math is important extends well beyond education and academic fields. It’s also important in everyday life — whether for performing work tasks, preparing meals for your family, managing your own personal budget or landscaping your backyard.1
Explore how math is used every day in life to gain a greater appreciation of computations and calculations.
If you enjoy working with numbers and you’re thinking about a career in education, why not pursue a career as a math teacher? There are a lot of great reasons to consider becoming a math teacher, such as the ability to empower and inspire struggling students.
Teaching math can be difficult because some students may be fixated on the idea that they’re “bad at math” or that they won’t use math when they’re older. Effective math teachers, however, can show students how much they can and will use math in everyday life. Here are some other reasons why teaching math is so important.
While many non-STEM jobs require math skills,2 STEM jobs tend to place a heavier emphasis on them.3 If you’re interested in STEM jobs, it’s time to buckle down on your math homework. From information security to software engineering to computer programming, all sorts of careers in STEM fields require solid math skills.3
Grand Canyon University offers a variety of STEM degrees, including math education degrees, at the baccalaureate and graduate levels. Start by earning a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics for Secondary Education degree and continue your math education with a Master of Science in Mathematics with an Emphasis in Education degree. You could also earn a Graduate Certificate of Completion in Mathematics online.
Math students are taught about pattern-seeking and logical thinking. These skills are widely transferable to a variety of fields and careers. The ability to adapt, learn and apply critical thinking is important in the workplace, in part because these skills can allow employees to compensate for any insufficiencies in subject matter expertise.
Failure and growth mindset are two big aspects of social and emotional learning. When students fail at something, it supports the learning process.
Growth mindset is the idea that competencies, like mathematical fluency, can be learned and are not a fixed set of skills. Math teaches students how to learn something new. These lessons can stay with students forever and may help build their self-confidence in other areas of life.
Discover the Importance of Math
Embrace your love of mathematics and pursue a career as a math teacher. Explore math degrees at GCU!
