Whether you are still in school and just starting to plan your career, or you are already experienced in the workforce and considering a mid-life career switch, it really is never too late to find the perfect job for you — especially when you consider how much money you can make these days in a role like General Manager.
They make 6 figures plus and the qualifications are nothing more than a bachelor’s degree.
Tip: Nothing makes you look more professional in any job interview than a pair of well-designed, indestructible glasses.
2017’s Highest Paying Jobs in America
50. Computer Software Engineers, Applications
Average annual salary: $87,500
Computer software engineers apply the principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and the systems that enable computers to perform their many applications.
Keep reading for the highest salary on list, clocking in at $258,100.
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49. Training and Development Managers
Average annual salary: $88,100
Training and development managers edify training methods to specialists. Training and development managers plan, direct, and coordinate programs to enhance the erudition and skills of an organization’s employees. They additionally oversee a staff of training and development specialists.
Keep reading for the highest paying, easiest jobs that pay 6 figures.
48. Chemical Engineers
Average annual salary: $88,300
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional works principally in the chemical industry to convert rudimentary raw materials into a variety of products, and deals with the design and operation of plants and equipment.
47. Electronics Engineers
Average annual salary: $89,300
Electronics engineers design and develop systems for industry, from mobile communications to manufacturing and aerospace. Electronics engineering, or electronic engineering, utilizes non-linear and active electrical components to design electronic circuits, devices, microprocessors, microcontrollers and other systems.
46. Engineers
Average annual salary: $89,600
Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the circumscriptions imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. As an engineer you might develop the next generation of the iPad, or a medical device that will help doctors treat an illness, or a spacecraft that will carry humans to Mars. The possibilities are endless.
45. Purchasing Managers
Average annual salary: $91,400
A Purchasing Manager is an employee within a company, business or other organization who is responsible at some level for buying or approving the acquisition of goods and accommodations needed by the company. A Purchasing Manager may oversee the acquisition of materials needed for production, general supplies for offices and facilities, equipment, or construction contracts. A Purchasing Manager often supervises purchasing agents and buyers, but in small companies the Purchasing Manager may also be the purchasing agent or buyer.
44. Managers
Average annual salary: $92,600
An individual who is in charge of a certain group of tasks, or a certain subset of a company. A manager often has a staff of people who report to him or her. The role of a manager remains an important and evolving position in today’s organizations. This article offers a working definition of the term “manager”, along with a description of core responsibilities of the various levels and types of managerial roles.
43. Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software
Average annual salary: $93,500
Computer software engineers apply the principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis to the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the software and the systems that enable computers to perform their many applications.
42. Mathematicians
Average annual salary: $93,600
Mathematicians use high-level mathematics and technology to develop mathematical principles, understand relationships between subsisting principles, and solve authentic-world quandaries. Mathematicians work with formulas to help solve problems in industry, academia, and government. Mathematicians conduct research to develop and understand mathematical principles. They also analyze data and apply mathematical techniques to help solve real-world problems.
41. Physical Scientists
Average annual salary: $94,000
Physical scientists are professionals who specialize in sciences that do not deal with living organisms such as physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology. Instead, they fixate on physical properties and energy. A physical scientist works mainly in a laboratory (although field work may be possible), conducts experiments or makes observations, analyzes findings, operates necessary equipment, and develops and tests theories. Physical scientists might work for a private research laboratory or a government agency or be a teacher in their field of interest.
40. Aerospace Engineers
Average annual salary: $94,800
Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Aeronautical engineering was the pristine term for the field.
39. Astronomers
Average annual salary: $104,700
An astronomer is a scientist who focuses primarily on the study of space, which includes the stars, the planets and the galaxies above us. An astronomer will spend his or her time analyzing data, inditing research papers or engendering computer programs that sanction a more efficacious search for the data amassed.
38. Computer and information research scientist
Average annual salary: $115,580
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 11%
Computer and information research scientists develop solutions to quandaries in the field of computer hardware and software. Computer and information research scientists invent and design new approaches to computing technology and find innovative uses for existing technology. They study and solve complex problems in computing for business, medicine, science, and other fields.
37. Nuclear Engineers
Average annual salary: $96,900
Nuclear engineers research and develop the processes, instruments, and systems used to derive benefits from nuclear energy and radiation. Many of these engineers find industrial and medical uses for radioactive materials—for example, in equipment utilized in medical diagnosis and treatment.
36. Computer Hardware Engineers
Average annual salary: $98,800
Computer hardware engineers research, design, develop, and test computer systems and components such as processors, circuit boards, recollection contrivances, networks, and routers. These engineers discover incipient directions in computer hardware, which engender rapid advances in computer technology.
35. Optometrist
Average annual salary: $115,750
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 27%
Optometrists diagnose and treat visual issues and ocular perceiver conditions, such as glaucoma, as well as prescribe corrective lenses. To become an optometrist, individuals must receive a bachelor’s degree and a four-year medico of optometry program.
34. Judge, magistrate judge, or magistrate
Average annual salary: $116,100
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): -1%
A judge is an appointed or elected magistrate who presides over court proceedings. A judge rules on questions of law, acts as a referee between the litigating parties and renders decisions in legal disputes. Judges play many roles. They interpret the law, assess the evidence presented, and control how hearings and trials unfold in their courtrooms. Most important of all, judges are impartial decision-makers in the pursuit of justice.
33. Human resources manager
Average annual salary: $117,080
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 9%
Human resources managers plan, direct, and coordinate the administrative functions of an organization. They oversee the recruiting, interviewing, and hiring of incipient staff; consult with top executives on strategic orchestrating; and accommodate as a link between an organization’s management and its employees.
32. Personal financial adviser
Average annual salary: $118,050
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 30%
Personal finance advisers help individuals manage their finances by providing advice on issues such as investments, indemnification, mortgages, college savings, estate orchestrating, taxes and retirement, depending on the client’s request.
31. Physicist
Average annual salary: $118,500
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 7%
Physicists typically specialize in one of many subfields, and some will go further to specialize in a subdivision of one of these subfields. However, all physics involve the same fundamental principles. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made (particle physics) to the behaviour of the material Universe as a whole (cosmology).
30. Air traffic controller
Average annual salary: $118,740
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): -9%
Air traffic controllers are people trained to maintain the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic in the air traffic control system. The position of air traffic controller is one that requires highly specialized cognizance, skills, and faculties. Controllers apply disseverment rules to keep aircraft at a safe distance from each other in their area of responsibility and move all aircraft safely and efficiently through their assigned sector of airspace, as well as on the ground.
29. Pharmacist
Average annual salary: $119,270
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 3%
Absolutely essential to the human services industry, pharmacists fill prescriptions, as well as instruct patients on the potential reactions of their medicines. People are always going to get sick, therefore a pharmacist has job security that will last a lifetime.
View this next job that pays $119,460 per year.
28. Business-operations manager
Average annual salary: $119,460
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 7%
Business-operations managers are the people who keep a business running. They wear any number of hats on any given day, including employing new staff, arranging contracts, settling on procedure choices, and building and driving viable groups. The most noteworthy paying areas for this occupation are Bridgeport, Connecticut, New York City, and Trenton, New Jersey.
27. Public relations or fundraising manager
Average annual salary: $119,390
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 7%
Public relations or fundraising managers plan, direct, and/or coordinate activities designed to maintain a positive public image or increase publicity for their organization or client; or if engaged in fundraising, plans, directs, or coordinate activities to solicit and maintain funds for special projects or nonprofit organizations.
26. General or operations manager
Average annual salary: $119,460
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 6%
An operations manager is a senior role which involves overseeing goods and/or accommodations. It’s an operations manager’s job to ascertain an organisation is running as well as it possibly can, in a smooth and efficient manner.
25. Compensation and benefits manager
Average annual salary: $121,630
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 6%
Compensation managers plan, develop, and oversee programs to determine how much an organization pays its employees and how employees are paid. Benefits managers plan, direct, and coordinate retirement plans, healthcare, and other benefits that an organization offers its employees.
24. Law professor
Average annual salary: $126,230
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 13%
Once you are hired for a job as a law professor, you will have many obligations and responsibilities that transcend the classroom. A law professor must become a entor to his or her students, providing academic assistance and guidance throughout their studies and heading towards their future vocation paths. Law professors routinely conduct research and publish articles in academic journals.
23. Sales manager
Average annual salary: $130,400
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 5%
Sales managers get their organization’s item into clients’ hands. To do this, managers must build up customer connections and deals domain, direct deals groups, create training programs for new contracts, plot group procedures, and set short-and long haul objectives.
Sales managers ordinarily hold either a graduate degree in business and have a natural ability to promote and sell.
22. Financial manager
Average annual salary: $134,330
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 7%
Financial managers are vital to their organizations since they prompt and control the checkbook. People in this position deliver benefit projections, supervise the income of activities, and facilitate bookkeeping. The occupation can be extremely stressful at times, and requires artfulness in taking care of numbers.
21. Podiatrist
Average annual salary: $136,180
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 14%
Podiatrists, to put it simply, are foot and leg doctors. They treat any number of foot-related ailments that range from ingrown toenails and bunions to fractures and sprains. Don’t be fooled, though. Beoming a podiatrist requires a lot of schooling. After finishing your Bachelor’s degree, you must then go to a podiatric medical school, finish a three-year residency program, and pass the American Podiatric Medical Licensing Exam.
20. Lawyer
Average annual salary: $136,260
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 6%
There are many different types of lawyers, from working at a private firm to an open position as a district attorney. Yet, one thing holds over the a wide range of cycles: Being a lawyer requires long, dedicated hours in the workplace. It is a job of high stress and requires a lot of organization as well, so if these are not qualities that you feel you can handle with grace, this may not be the position for you.
Despite the fact that salaries vary depending on specialty, lawyers tend to make the most in and around San Jose, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
19. Airline pilot, copilot, or flight engineer
Average annual salary: $136,400
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 5%
A flight engineer (FE), additionally sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft’s flight crew who monitors and operates its aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referred to as the “air mechanic”.
18. Natural sciences manager
Average annual salary: $136,570
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 3%
Natural sciences managers supervise the work of scientists, including chemists, physicists, and biologists. They direct activities related to research and development, and coordinate activities such as testing and quality control.
17. Marketing manager
Average annual salary: $140,660
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 9%
Being a marketing manager doesn’t accompany a set-in-stone rundown of duties. Marketing managers must handle any number of duties at any given time, including everything from garnering new customers, to strategic planning, to design work. The highest paying cities for this position include San Jose, San Francisco, and New York City.
16. Information-technology manager
Average annual salary: $141,000
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 15%
IT managers regulate programming and equipment redesigns, protect office systems from Malware, and keep all technological equipment up to date. The position isn’t industry-particular, either. IT administrators have turned out to be important all over, in just about every single company that requires its employees use a computer.
15. Architectural or engineering manager
Average annual salary: $141,650
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 2%
Engineering management is a vocation that practices engineering while overseeing many facets, such as the organizational, administrative, etc. from conception to completion.
14. Petroleum engineer
Average annual salary: $149,590
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 10%
Petroleum engineers make new innovation or make better approaches to apply existing innovation to help untap oil. College undergrads can even become involved in the process, helping business and government officials with new approaches to untapping oil.
13. Nurse anesthetist
Average annual salary: $160,250
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 19%
Nurse anesthetists help doctors by directing anesthesia through intravenous medications or breathed in gasses before otherwise painful procedures. To become a nurse anesthetist, enrolled nurses must receive a graduate degree from an authorized nurse-anesthesia program.
12. Prosthodontist
Average annual salary: $161,020
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 18%
Not quite the same as an orthodontist, prosthodontists are dental experts who assemble oral prostheses that replace missing teeth.
11. Dentist
Average annual salary: $172,350
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 18%
Dentists help keep the patient’s mouths, gums, and teeth healthy by filling holes, diagnosing oral infections, and pulling teeth when required. The most generously compensated dentists work in Lafayette, Indiana, Brownsville, Texas, and Wausau, Wisconsin.
10. Pediatrician
Average annual salary: $183,180
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 10%
Pediatricians concentrate on the physical and psychological well-being of kids, from infancy through childhood. Strengths extend from oncology and hematology to developmental behavior and psychiatry.
9. Chief executive
Average annual salary: $185,850
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 6%
Chief executive officer (CEO) is the highest-ranking executive in a company, and their primary responsibilities include making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company, and acting as the main point of communication between the board of directors and corporate operations.
8. Family and general practitioner
Average annual salary: $192,120
Projected growth (2014 – 2024): 14%
Physicians who diagnose, treat, and help prevent diseases and injuries that commonly occur in the general population. May refer patients to specialists when needed for further diagnosis or treatment.
7. Psychiatrist
Average annual salary: $193,680
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 15%
Not at all like podiatrists and surgeons, who manage physical ailments, psychiatrists tend to a patient’s psychological well-being. They analyze and treat complex conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. Psychiatrists utilize a blend of techniques to treat patients and help them cope.
6. Physician
Average annual salary: $196,520
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 9%
The term “physiscian” includes everything from general practice doctors to gynecologists to cardiologists to dermatologists — and every specialty in between. Salary fluctuates greatly depending on niche and experience, but the most generously compensated physicians tend to work in Florence, South Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Medford, Oregon.
5. Orthodontist
Average annual salary: $221,390
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 18%
Orthodontists are the doctors you dreaded going to as a child because it most likely meant you were going to receive braces. They help straighten otherwise crooked teeth to create a smile you will be proud to show off for years to come.
4. Obstetrician and gynecologist
Average annual salary: $222,400
Projected growth (2014 to 2024): 18%
Obstetricians and gynecologists help keep women’s productive organs stay safe by screening for HPV and different STDs, overseeing contraceptive distribution, and helping patients with issues like abnormal bleeding, cramping, etc. Obstetricians, regularly referred to as OB-GYNs, screen pregnant women throughout their pregnancy and help bring the child into the world.