Every career path has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, a career’s salary is one of the biggest considerations that workers make before pursuing a degree or taking a job offer. In fact, students commonly seek the highest paying degrees to find the most lucrative professions. Fortunately, there are many high paying industries and professions to choose from. Once you’ve acquired the degree you need, there are a lot of ways to get a job offer, including through advertising agencies, online job search engines, local recruiters, and industry specific job boards.
If you’re trying to decide on your major or you’ve recently graduated, here are the highest paying majors and most lucrative online degrees career paths.
Financial advisors help individuals manage their money, including in life insurance, investments, retirement, estate planning, tax planning, and other essential finances. Financial advisors are one of the highest paid bachelor degree jobs, and include fields in accounting and finance. These professionals may be self-employed or employed by brokerage firms, banks, and other financial institutions.
To become a financial advisor, you’ll need:
- A good understanding of finances
- Knowledge related to financial instruments and the various types of investments
- Familiarity with market conditions
Additionally, you may need interpersonal, networking, and sales skills as financial advisors commonly work with clients to help them achieve their financial goals. After graduating, it’s easier, though not always necessary, to get your foot in the door by taking on an internship. Additionally, you may need to pass different state exams or earn specific certifications, such as:
- Series 6: Investment Company and Variable Contracts Products Representative Qualification Examination (IR)
- Series 7: General Securities Representative Qualification Examination (GS)
- Series 63: Uniform Securities State Law Examination
- Series 65: Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination
- Series 66: Uniform Combined State Law Examination
- Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam
The exams you must pass and the certifications you must earn will be dependent on your state, employer, and specific job title.
As one of the highest paying business degrees professions, there’s a lot of money to be earned as a financial advisor. The average entry-level financial advisor makes $34,000 a year, but the national average salary for financial advisors is $87,850. Additionally, many employers offer commission-based opportunities to their advisors, leading to overall higher paying salaries.
If you’re searching for one of the highest paying four year degrees career paths, financial manager may be the job for you. Financial managers are employed by almost every type of company and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), financial managers have an expected job growth of 15.5 percent between 2019 and 2029.
As a financial manager, you’ll be working with companies to analyze and enhance their financial performance. Your day-to-day tasks might include forecasting sales and profit metrics or creating financial reports for the business. You’ll also need certain skills for the job. You may be well suited to be a financial manager if you:
- Are detail oriented, as finances are heavily regulated
- Are good at communication
- Have a great understanding of financial metrics and sales
Financial manager degree requirements include some of the highest paying business degrees, including degrees in business administration, accounting, and finance. On average, financial managers have an entry position salary of $59,000, but a national average of $93,179. Additionally, businesses commonly provide financial managers with other incentives, such as commission and profit sharing.
If you’re looking for the highest paying trade in management and finance, consider becoming a management consultant. Management consultants work directly with businesses to improve their finances, sales, operations, accounting, and other important factors impacting overall efficiency. Good management consultants are possess skills like:
- Detail orientation, as you’ll need to learn everything there is to know about a business
- Data analyzing
- Great communication
- Relationship building
- Critical thinking
Additionally, you’ll need a good understanding of finance, statistical analysis, and data collection. Like many other finance jobs, management consultants are one of the highest paid bachelor degree jobs out there. The average entry-level position pays a whopping $82,000 and the national average salary for this position is $149,000 each year. Like many finance positions, businesses commonly provide bonuses and commission opportunities. If you’d like to become a management consultant, choose a major like statistics, computer science, business, or economics.
Advertising, promotion, and marketing managers are key to a company’s growth. These professionals use various marketing strategies to oversee business strategies for promotions, overall branding, advertisement, and more. As one of the highest paying business degree positions, this profession has an entry level salary of $48,000 and an overall average salary of $66,317. Additionally, this profession is expected to have an eight percent job growth from 2018 to 2028. To excel, you’ll need to pursue a major in communications, business, public relations, or marketing.
Most sales managers hold a bachelor’s degree. However, some employers only require sales managers to hold an associate’s degree, making sales managers one of the highest paying jobs with associates degree.
Sales managers are in charge of managing salespeople in specific territories. In some cases, managers are also expected to train and mentor new sales representatives and set sale metrics that measure a team’s performance and profits. An ideal sales manager has experience and know-how in sales themselves. Additionally, it’s important to have good interpersonal skills and the ability to motivate employees.
Sales managers have an average entry level salary of $56,000 and an overall salary of $82,763. However, it’s common for sales managers to also earn commissions on their team’s total sales and have bonus opportunities available to them. The best majors for this high paying trade include business admiration and marketing.
One of the top paying masters degrees professions is an aerospace engineer. As an aerospace engineer, your job duties will revolve around designing, building, and testing various aircrafts, including spacecraft, drones, missiles, and airplanes. While some career paths do involve working in private sectors, you’re more likely to work as a government contractor or be employed by a government agency. In some cases, a bachelors degree may be sufficient for this role, but it’s a highly competitive field, so a masters is almost always a must-have. Average entry level salaries for aerospace engineers is $70,000, with overall averages as high as $84,892 annually.
If you’re looking for one of the highest paying degrees in IT, earning a bachelor’s degree and becoming a network architect may be the way to go. Network architects are responsible for designing network infrastructures, including intranets, wide area networks, and local area networks. Commonly required majors include engineering, mathematics, and computer science. Additionally, several certification may be required to gain a position, including:
- Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA)
- ITIL Master
- Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)
- The Open Group TOGAF 9
- Zachman Certified – Enterprise Architect
The average starting salary for network architects is $73,000 and the overall average salary is $122,125.
Another one of the top paying master degree careers is an architect. Architects are responsible for designing, planning, and working with construction professionals and engineers to create buildings and residential homes. The designs you create will not only need to meet building codes and be functional, but they must meet environmental regulations and be feasible. The best majors for an architect are general architect, interior architect, or architectural science and technology. Like many other careers, you may be able to get into this lucrative career path with only a bachelor’s degree, but a masters is recommended. The average architect earns between $44,356 at entry level and $82,490 overall.