10 Highest Paying Jobs Right Now
Being passionate about what you do is really important for some, but for most of the working professionals, it becomes all about the money in a few years time. Why? With rising prices of basic necessities of life and increasing financial responsibilities for the family, there is a lot of stress for a person to take. People might try taking on multiple jobs for increased income, start side hustles and sometimes get trapped in getting rich quick scams to earn additional income. However, the best way to approach this problem is to set up your career trajectory in such a way that your full-time job can contribute the highest possible income, alleviating the need to expend too much energy on other sources of active income.
To help you figure out what career path you can align yourself to, we bring you the 10 highest paying jobs right now as per the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We have tweaked some data by grouping types of jobs into single entries so as to get a broader picture of the distinct set of jobs that are valued the most in the current economy.
10. Financial Managers
Annual Mean Wage: $139,720
The financial health of any organization is monitored and measured by the financial managers. They direct investment activities, produce financial reports and develop plans and strategies for long-term financial goals of their organization. Financial managers increasingly assist executives of the company in making financially sound decisions. If you have got that excellent analytical ability and amazing communication skills, you might want to consider becoming a financial manager. There is an estimated 6.8 percent job growth projected for the roles in financial engineering for the coming year, mostly in banks and insurance companies.
9. Lawyers
Annual Mean Wage: $139,880
Lawyers are usually looked up with a sense of apprehension by most of the people unless we are in some serious legal trouble. Along with intense schooling in the fields of Law, lawyers have to practice as they go. In this profession, the amount of experience in practicing law is valued more highly than anything else. There are more than 600,000 lawyers in the US today, with the majority of them concentrated in New York and California. To become a lawyer you will need a bachelors degree, three years in law school and completion of the bar exam. There are a lot of paths that you can take once you are a lawyer, like criminal law, environmental law, corporate law, intellectual and patent rights and many more.
8. Architectural and Engineering Managers
Annual Mean Wage: $143,870
Engineers are good at developing code or making machines or do something along those lines. Architects draw plans, make models and design every little detail of buildings we live in. These are usually big complex projects, and they are broken down into small parts. Managers pool in the resources (engineers and architects) and successfully completing one module at a time. These positions require a lot of management know-how along with in depth technical understanding. Since such a skill set and experience mashup is very difficult to find in many people, the salaries for these jobs are really high. Most of the Engineering managers in the tech industry in California make in the range of $200,000 — $250,000 a year. However, it is important to note that most of the Engineering Manager jobs are in the Oil and Energy industry. This is because making and maintaining a large network of pipes is a very complex job. With oil industries in a slump and tech industries innovating to get rid of middle management, there are going to be very few of these jobs left in the coming years. You need at the very least 5 years of experience with a bachelor’s degree to take on a role as an engineering manager.
7. Marketing Managers
Annual Mean Wage: $144,140
You may start a company today, build a product, get the product market fit right and have everything else set — what use is everything else if you can’t sell your product, build a brand and a following. Your product is not your business, marketing is your business. This is the advice given to all the budding entrepreneurs in the startup accelerators throughout the world. This holds true even for big corporations. Marketing is a very important portion of running any business, and you need really well-qualified people to be able to handle it. They shape the face of your company, so naturally, when it comes to remuneration you need to pay them generously. Years of experience and a strong portfolio can offset any education requirements to becoming a marketing manager. So it is really easy to pivot to this career stream, but you need to prove you are good.
6.Computer and Information System Managers
Annual Mean Wage: $145,740
It is common knowledge that tech has taken over most of the industries, you will hardly find any jobs that do not use software or the internet in some way or the other. All businesses, big and small, need to coordinate everything done online or on computers. For small businesses there are solution providers that handle such intricacies of computer management, but big businesses need a host of computer and information system managers in the company to handle everything related to computing systems. There is a huge demand for these kinds of jobs, and the number of job openings seems to increase every single year. Working in New York, the heart of the Fintech industry or in Silicon Valley, you can make an even $150k easily. You will need a bachelor’s in computer science or information science to get started in this field.
5. Petroleum Engineers
Annual Mean Wage: $147,030
Even with the huge drop in oil prices, and a seemingly downward trend in the crude oil industry petroleum engineers are paid extremely well. The industry is quite volatile at the moment but it’s necessary to understand that more than three-quarters of all energy needs are met today via crude oil and this is not going to change anytime soon. Oil extraction and drilling specialization engineers have experienced difficulty in finding jobs in the past couple of years, however becoming an expert in petroleum refinery processes hold a strong promise for a long time to come. Even when renewable sources of energy take over the world, you can pivot to chemical processing plants just as easily. One of the top schools in the country with a really amazing return on investment is Texas A&M University in College Station. Go Aggies!
4. Airline Pilots, and Flight Engineers
Annual Mean Wage: $152,770
For people who wish to travel around the world, and make lots of money at the same time, becoming a pilot is the way to go. To become a pilot you need a bachelor’s degree in an aviation-related discipline, a commercial pilot’s license from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and an ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) certificate. Along with the degree and certificates, you will need a couple hundred hours of pilot-in-command experience and specialized training in using specific tools and devices. You will also be subjected to physical and mental testing before you are ready to go out and fly solo. The education and training program is pretty expensive, it costs somewhere in the range of $70,000 to $100,000 taking into consideration all tuition and certifications. Moreover, it may take up to 10 years before the pilot starts making serious cash on long-distance passenger flights. It is also worth noting that the airline industry does not have considerable profit margins, meaning that small decisions can put your job in jeopardy. So in terms of job security being a pilot sucks, but nonetheless, they are compensated with high salaries and generous benefits.
3. Dentists
Annual Mean Wage: $178,670
Dentists follow suit of the core medicine professionals in grabbing the third spot on the highest paying jobs right now. By record, 122,330 dentists are actively practicing in the US at the moment. It is also important to note that the education and training timeline for dentists is relatively shorter as compared to physicians and surgeons. You can get a degree and complete training within 8 years at the most and start raking in tons of money. There is a specialization to become orthodontists, and they earn a whopping $228,780 on average, but the openings are relatively few with only 5,200 practicing orthodontists on record.
2. Chief Executives
Annual Mean Wage: $194,350
It is not very difficult to fathom the C-suite people taking the first spot as the highest paid people in the country, but since we are talking about average numbers (including entrepreneurs who are taking meager salaries in early-stage startups) this job comes second to the medical profession in terms of compensation. A whopping 223,000 Chief Executives are on record in the US at the moment. Being a Chief Executive is a very high-stress job, which comes with a lot of responsibility (and a lot of lawsuits). It takes practice to become better at this job, however, you don’t need any set education or training to become a chief executive, all you need is an idea and a drive strong enough to build a company around that idea. Around 40 percent of the CEOs do MBA so as to avoid some of the critical mistakes in operations, but it is not necessary. You will need to wear a lot of hats when you are starting off, and if you are bootstrapping you have got yourself in a goldmine of very valuable lessons and experiences. You learn a lot, and appreciate the intricacies of the dynamics of any particular industry — and this is very valuable. You get a sense of greater purpose than a mundane dead-end job and can feel the impact you are making in the real world. This is not for everyone though, you need a strong sense of dedication and discipline to get through the tough times. My only advice is not to focus on the successes of any entrepreneur — go through their hard pasts that got them there.
1. Medicine Professionals
Annual Mean Wage: $200,220 — $269,600
The highest-paying category nationwide is that of Medicine Professionals. It definitely requires some serious hard work with at least 10–12 years of education and training to get to these positions. It also requires a lot of money to get through the education and you have to live with a sub-par salary for years when you are in residency. But, all of the hard work is paid off in the form of hefty compensation. For some people saving lives brings a sense of satisfaction in performing their jobs in this sector, since you require some really strong motivation to get through long hours of work at times. For this category, we have grouped Anesthesiologists, Surgeons, Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, Physicians and Surgeons, Family and General Practitioners, and Psychiatrists. If you are really interested in one of these fields and are ready to fully commit yourself to learning the skills, here is a list of schools that might interest you to take a look at.
It really doesn’t matter which discipline you work in at the moment, you can pivot into one of the high paying career streams if you put some time and effort in.
…
Job Memos is an initiative taken by the team at Jobmates, where we are working hard to make lightning fast connections between job seekers and recruiters. With one common application you can reach to thousands of recruiters in one click! go to Jobmates.com to learn more
Originally published at www.jobmemos.com.
