While it’s natural to desire a job that you like and find fulfilling, there’s also no ignoring money as a big motivating factor in our career choices. Though plenty of people sacrifice better pay to make a difference in professions such as teaching or social work, it’s also common to weigh our aptitudes, and then set our sights on one of the jobs where our skills can earn us the best wages.
Ideally, your career will offer both fulfillment and a high salary — but to achieve that, it helps to know what the best-paying jobs are. To give us some ideas on that score, the folks at Glassdoor have compiled their annual list of the 25 Highest Paying Jobs in America. (Naturally, they exclude the C-suite jobs; those aren’t exactly career options one can “choose.”)
Where the salaries are
What’s clear from this list is that if you want to get paid, the technology sector your best bet: 13 jobs on it are in tech, up from 11 in 2017. Healthcare had the second most entries with five, down one from last year.
It’s also important to recognize that just because a job makes the list one year, that doesn’t mean it will be there forever. Eight new job titles including “Strategy Manager,” “Cloud Engineer,” and “Nurse Practitioner” earned spots on the 2018 list, which means that eight others fell off.
| Rank | Job | Median Base Salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Physician | $195,842 |
| 2 | Pharmacy Manager | $146,412 |
| 3 | Pharmacist | $127,120 |
| 4 | Enterprise Architect | $115,944 |
| 5 | Corporate Counsel | $115,580 |
| 6 | Software Development Manager | $108,879 |
| 7 | Physician Assistant | $108,761 |
| 8 | Software Engineering Manager | $107,479 |
| 9 | Nurse Practitioner | $106,962 |
| 10 | Software Architect | $105,329 |
| 11 | Engineering Manager | $105,260 |
| 12 | Applications Development Manager | $104,048 |
| 13 | Plant Manager | $103,892 |
| 14 | IT Program Manager | $102,969 |
| 15 | Solutions Architect | $102,160 |
| 16 | Financial Planning and Analysis Manager | $102,155 |
| 17 | Data Architect | $101,900 |
| 18 | Strategy Manager | $101,754 |
| 19 | Systems Architect | $100,984 |
| 20 | Scrum Master | $98,239 |
| 21 | Consulting Manager | $97,154 |
| 22 | Attorney | $96,678 |
| 23 | Cloud Engineer | $96,449 |
| 24 | Tax Manager | $96,175 |
| 25 | Data Scientist | $96,116 |
“The fact that employers are paying top dollar for many tech and healthcare jobs reinforces how demand for these valuable skill sets continues to outpace the supply of talent with these expertises,” said Glassdoor Economic Research Analyst Amanda Stansell in a press release.
Salary is important, but it’s hardly the only thing you should consider when picking a profession or plotting a career move. Getting paid what you deserve or desire may not be worth it if you hate the work. It’s important to find a balance — even if that means earning a little less than you’d ideally want to.
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