Tinder users swipe right most on pilots and physical therapists

Men looking to improve their prospects on dating app Tinder have a new failsafe strategy: albeit one that involves racking up 1,500 hours of flying planes to secure a pilot’s licence.

The company has published research into the most popular professions on its service in terms of how often those users get swiped right – approved as a potential match.

For men, pilots are the most right-swiped jobs, followed by founder/entrepreneurs, firefighters, doctors and TV/radio personalities.

The comparable women’s chart is topped by physical therapists, followed by interior designers, founder/entrepreneurs, PR/communications workers and teachers.

Lower down the list, models rank eighth in the males chart and tenth in the females chart – in the latter case, just one place ahead of dental hygienists – sparkling teeth are clearly an asset for Tinder’s photo-based matchmaking.

Tinder is also keen to stress its popularity among students, with college student the tenth most right-swiped profession for men and sixth for women. The dating app’s initial growth, like social networks including Facebook before it, came from universities in the US.

The study was based on US users of Tinder. The company added the ability for users to add their professions and education to their profiles in November 2015, although for now both remain optional.

The company is nudging users to flesh out its data on them by promising that adding a profession “increases your chances of receiving a right swipe”. Especially if you’re a pilot – or (perish the thought) if you say you’re a pilot, and can look convincing enough in a peaked cap.

Tinder has been on a drive to change perceptions of its app from being purely about casual sex to a longer-term matchmaking tool.

“We just conducted a survey of over 300,000 of our users. What we found was over 80% of people on Tinder are there to find a long-term relationship,” said chief executive Sean Rad in November 2015.