It’s important to find a job you love, but it’s not rare to know many people who are less than enthusiastic about their careers. A lot of this despondency in the workforce can be attributed back to the same thing: money. We need it to live and (up to a certain point) to enjoy life.
Being underpaid is, at the very least, a demoralizing experience and at the worst it can leave you swimming in debt and mired in depression. So if you can’t find a job you love, at least find one that pays the bills (and who knows, you might come to love it).
Here are five jobs in the USA that pay the best.
Architectural and Engineering Managers
Salary: $137,400
Remember the joke about the nerdy engineer?
Well, at an annual mean wage of $137,400 a year, who’s laughing now?
Architectural and Engineering Managers turn a good profit in a variety of fields, including the lucrative world of oil and gas industries.
Architectural and engineering managers whose focus is in the transportation and distribution of crude oil can earn around $189,000 a year and their hometowns aren’t too shabby either.
To break into this field, you need a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and a solid block of experience.
Marketing Managers
Salary: $138,000
Marketing managers use their skills in a wide range of industries and are becoming more and more sought as social media and organic marketing skyrocket. The top-paid in this field work in oil and gas extraction, while financial sectors also pay a cushy wage.
The education requirements for becoming a marketing manager are a bit vague, many businesses look for bachelor’s degrees in marketing, but degrees in communications, PR or journalism will also do. This, coupled with years of experience and a well-built, eye-catching portfolio, will help get your foot in the door.
Chief Executive Officers
Salary: $180,700
All hail the chief.
Chief Executive Officers are one of the highest-paying jobs in the US that does not necessarily require years and years of education. While an MBA and a bachelor’s degree can help, CEOs rely on a wide breadth of experience and extensive networking skills. Most CEOs you meet will have years and years of relevant experience under their belts.
One of the most populous jobs, around 250,000 in the USA alone lists their job title as CEO.
The best-compensated CEOs work in the film industry and enjoy an annual mean wage of over $225,000 and, big surprise; they usually live in sunny California.
Dentists and Orthodontists
Salary: $170,940 (Dentists), $201,030 (Orthodontists)
Remember how much you hated going to the dentist when you were a kid? Well now you know that your parents did too.
While you may think that dentists play second fiddle to the flashy doctors sharing their facilities, there’s no shame in working on teeth, especially when it nets you close to $200,000 a year. With about 90,000 dentists currently registered in the USA, the rarer skills of the orthodontists who specializes in the prevention and correction of malformed teeth and jaws, allow them to make the most money in this field.
Unfortunately, you will certainly need more than a bachelor’s degree for this field; dentists typically require 8 years of education and many hands on and written exams and tests to get their license.
Physicians and Surgeons
Salary: $234,950
In the USA, many of the most profitable jobs are in the medical community, so to avoid a list, which makes you feel like you should have gone to med school; we’ve grouped all medical components into this category.
If you’ve got the money, then they’ve got the honey. Medical school isn’t cheap and it’s not short, but graduating in the field of medicine is guaranteed to net you a fine income for the rest of your years. Even the lowest paid (which still make $40,000 more than the lowest paid on our list) are pediatricians at an average income of $174,000 per year.
Unlike many other fields where nearing 60 means retirement will loom over you as young, bright things push for your position, in the field of medicine a wise mind and a steady hand reign supreme. So you can expect many long, profitable years in the medical field.
