If living in U.S., you might want to know which job will yield you the most and which one will leave you in pain - both mentally and physically. Making it easy to find a dream job, CareerCast ranked 200 different jobs in its 2012 jobs related list. In the rating, Software Engineer is rated as the best job of 2012 and Lumberjack as the worst job of 2012 in U.S.

The rating is based on five key factors - work environment, physical demands, stress, hiring outlook and income.

Software engineering, cracking the title of best job of 2012 in U.S., will pay you a mid-range of salary but with most friendly work environment, low stress and strong hiring outlook. On the other hand axe swinging turned out to be the worst thing to do in U.S. Lumberjacks works in open environment under extreme weather conditions. Lumberjack is paid low salary and with new mighty machines replacing workers, unemployment is all time high in the tree-cutting business.

Software engineer scored 177 points (lower is better) on CareerCast list, while on the other extreme end, Lumberjack scored 1776. On average, a software engineer gets $88,142 per annum, which is approximately $56,000 more when compared to the average income in Lumberjack sector. Lumberjack, on average, is paid $32,144 per year.

The other most underrated jobs are Dairy Farmer, Military Soldier, Oil Rig Worker and Newspaper Reporter (yes, you heard the last one right). Probably, some of you might not look again as these professions as a dream job. Turning the side up, other than Software Engineer, best 10 jobs in U.S. are Actuary, Human Resources Manager (HRM), Dental Hygienist, Financial Planner, Audiologist, Occupational Therapist, Online Advertising Manager, Computer Systems Analyst and Mathematician (yes, you heard the last one right, again).

So, if you want to earn a satisfactory job, then University Degree is a minimum requirement. Apart from computer nerds, medical professions are also among the highest-rated jobs.

The report also listed most stressful jobs, which includes Airline Pilot, Soldier, Firefighter, Military General and Taxi Driver.

(reported by Johnny Wills, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)