Money can't buy happiness, but we live in a world where it's exchanged for goods and services. Until that economic model changes, higher paying jobs allow us to buy more of the things our families may want or need.
In this article, we're going to provide several lists of the highest paying jobs in America, as determined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We're also going to slice and dice that data several different ways, revealing some interesting trends in the information. We'll also help answer questions such as:
What will be the highest paying job in 2020 or 2021?
What's the value of a higher education?
Salary Information
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The information in the following lists is based on data gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics here in the United States. The most current data was gathered through a survey conducted in 2019; and the results of that survey were published in May 2020. This year's information should be available around May of 2021, at which point we will update this article. This is a pattern we've followed for the last fourteen years.
The salary information is based on what are called Standard Occupational Classification codes. These codes give those conducting the salary survey a consistent way to describe certain careers, or professions, as well as a way to group similar jobs into larger categories. In many of the tables below, we'll not only provide the average salary for each job type, but also the percentage change in salary from the prior year's survey.
Careers in America
To demonstrate how this works, this first list will contain what we're calling the highest paying careers in America. This list ranks all occupational categories, which are groups of similar jobs. The list below is ordered from the highest to lowest paying, on a National basis:
Highest Paying Occupations
| Career / Occupations | Average Salary |
| Management Occupations | $122,480 |
| Legal Occupations | $109,630 |
| Computer and Mathematical Occupations | $93,760 |
| Architecture and Engineering Occupations | $88,800 |
| Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | $83,640 |
| Business and Financial Operations Occupations | $78,130 |
| Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations | $77,540 |
| Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations | $61,960 |
| Educational Instruction and Library Occupations | $57,710 |
| All Occupations | $53,490 |
| Construction and Extraction Occupations | $52,580 |
| Community and Social Service Occupations | $50,480 |
| Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations | $50,130 |
| Protective Service Occupations | $49,880 |
| Sales and Related Occupations | $43,060 |
| Office and Administrative Support Occupations | $41,040 |
| Production Occupations | $40,140 |
| Transportation and Material Moving Occupations | $37,920 |
| Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations | $31,340 |
| Personal Care and Service Occupations | $31,260 |
| Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations | $31,250 |
| Healthcare Support Occupations | $31,010 |
| Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations | $26,670 |
This is a good place to start, because it provides the range of salaries across all occupation types. The information also provides an understanding of the types of jobs that require a college degree; as well as how much money each career type pays.
One item we found interesting in the above table was that medical careers, as described by “Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations,” only ranked fifth on this list. But as we’ll soon see, that ranking can be deceiving.
Highest Paying Jobs
Next up is the list that many will agree is the single most interesting statistic published on wages and salaries: The highest paying jobs in the United States:
Top 10 Highest Paying Jobs
| Profession | Average Salary | % Change |
| Anesthesiologists | $261,730 | -2.0% |
| Surgeons | $252,040 | -1.2% |
| Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons | $237,570 | -2.0% |
| Obstetricians and Gynecologists | $233,610 | -2.0% |
| Orthodontists | $230,830 | 2.2% |
| Prosthodontists | $220,840 | 15.4% |
| Psychiatrists | $220,430 | 0.0% |
| Family and General Practitioners | $213,270 | 0.7% |
| Internists, General | $201,440 | 2.5% |
| Chief Executives | $193,850 | -3.1% |
Healthcare professionals dominate the rankings, taking nine of the ten of the top spots. What conclusions can we draw from this kind of information?
If you want to make a lot of money, and claim to be among the highest wage earners in America, then you need to be in the medical profession.
Despite all of the healthcare industry claims otherwise, medical doctors are the highest paid professionals in the working world today.
But what about individuals that don't have a medical degree: What can they hope to earn?
Non-Healthcare Professions
To answer that question, we've provided a second list. This time we've removed all the medical professions to see what opportunities exist if you're not up for the challenge of being a doctor:
Top 10 Highest Paying Non-Medical Professions
| Profession | Average Salary | % Change |
| Chief Executives | $193,850 | -3.1% |
| Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers | $174,870 | 3.1% |
| Petroleum Engineers | $156,780 | 0.3% |
| Computer and Information Systems Managers | $156,390 | 2.3% |
| Architectural and Engineering Managers | $152,930 | 2.7% |
| Marketing Managers | $149,200 | 1.3% |
| Financial Managers | $147,530 | 0.5% |
| Natural Sciences Managers | $145,450 | 4.1% |
| Lawyers | $145,300 | 0.7% |
| Advertising and Promotions Managers | $141,890 | 6.6% |
It's no surprise that chief executive officers made this list. But what we found interesting is that airline pilots also placed in one of the top 10 spots. A trend we see in this ranking is professions with the term "manager" in the title. If you want to be paid a lot of money, it's important to have the skills it takes to be a manager or a leader.
Computer and Information Technology Jobs
Since we're publishing this information on the World Wide Web, we're adding something extra for IT and computer professionals. To help individuals aspiring to be in the technology profession, we put together a list that outlines the higher paying computer / IT careers:
Highest Paying IT Jobs
| IT Jobs / Professions | Average Salary | % Change |
| Computer and Information Research Scientists | $127,460 | 2.9% |
| Computer Network Architects | $115,110 | 3.6% |
| Software Developers, Applications | $111,620 | 3.3% |
| Information Security Analysts | $104,210 | 1.7% |
| Computer Systems Analysts | $96,160 | 2.7% |
| Database Administrators and Architects | $96,110 | New |
| Computer Programmers | $92,610 | 3.4% |
| Computer Occupations, All Other | $92,410 | -1.0% |
| Network and Computer Systems Administrators | $88,410 | 1.5% |
| Web Developers | $82,370 | 9.0% |
| Computer Network Support Specialists | $68,860 | 1.2% |
From the above list, we see that computer scientists and software developers are the top paying professions in the IT world. It's no surprise individuals that are learning the trade, such as computer support specialists, earns the least.
Money and Education
When evaluating these labor statistics, we came across one other bit of information we thought would be interesting: How much someone is paid versus their investment in an education.
We were able to download data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; the information is for 2015. The data is for persons engaged in full-time employment, both salaried and hourly workers. The information is for workers that are 25 years of age and over.
Value of an Education
This first table is the median annual salary for workers separated by the level of education attained. Remember, the median is the midpoint of the salary range, roughly half of the individuals in the group earn more than the median, and half earn less. Many statisticians prefer to state this type of information using median instead of using the mean, or average.
Earnings by Education Level
| Education | Median Salary |
| No Diploma | $20,730 |
| High School Diploma | $35,540 |
| Associate Degree | $49,470 |
| Master's Degree | $65,330 |
| Bachelor's Degree | $69,260 |
| Doctoral or Professional Degree | $98,940 |
The above table is read like this: Individuals without a high school diploma earned around $21,000 per year, while individuals with a college diploma earned around $50,000. This means a college graduate has over twice the earning potential of a high school dropout.
We thought that last statistic was so interesting that we took the information one step further. We wanted to see how much each progressive level of education was worth. So we put the following table together:
Comparison of Annual Pay versus Education
| No | HS | Associate | Master's | Bachelor's | Doctoral | |
| Diploma | Diploma | Degree | Degree | Degree | Degree | |
| No Diploma | $0 | ($14,810) | ($28,740) | ($44,600) | ($48,530) | ($78,210) |
| High School Diploma | $14,810 | $0 | ($13,930) | ($29,790) | ($33,720) | ($63,400) |
| Associate Degree | $28,740 | $13,930 | $0 | ($15,860) | ($19,790) | ($49,470) |
| Master's Degree | $44,600 | $29,790 | $15,860 | $0 | ($3,930) | ($33,610) |
| Bachelor's Degree | $48,530 | $33,720 | $19,790 | $3,930 | $0 | ($29,680) |
| Doctoral Degree | $78,210 | $63,400 | $49,470 | $33,610 | $29,680 | $0 |
The above table is interpreted in this manner: An individual with a high school diploma can expect to earn $13,930 less than someone that has an associate degree. A person with a college diploma, a bachelor's degree, can expect to make around $33,720 more money than someone with a high school diploma each year. Clearly, there is a great deal of value to be derived from getting a college diploma.
Final High Paying Job List
We've taken the information published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the last seven years, and compiled a list of the average salaries for all professions covered. This is not a list of the top 20, 50, or 100 professions. This list covers over 800 different jobs.
The list of average annual salaries is sorted in descending order, meaning the highest paying jobs are ranked at the top of the list. The spreadsheet also contains fourteen worksheets. The first represents the most current information published today. The next twelve worksheets contain information for prior years. Finally, the last sheet compares each year, and calculates the annual increase in average salary for each career type. As is the case with all of the information we publish, it's yours to download for free.
About the Author - High Paying Careers
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