We all know that no one should pick a future career based entirely off of how much money they would make. Factors like personal strengths, skills, and passion for the work are far more important. That said, money sure is nice to have around. And, if you did pick a list of careers based entirely off of how much money you could make, it would look exactly like this.
LinkedIn has combed through their salary data to come up with the following list of positions. The data provides a job title, median base salary, and the number of self-reported data points that LinkedIn relied on to support their claims.
The List
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the top jobs demand eight more years of school. Here’s the list of the highest paying jobs, via LinkedIn’s blog:
Cardiologist – $356,000 [150+ jobs]
Radiologist – $355,000 [100+ jobs]
Anesthesiologist – $350,000 [100+ jobs]
Surgeon – $338,000 [600+ jobs]
Medical Director – $230,000 [1,300+ jobs]
Pathologist – $225,000 [8,000+ jobs]
Physician (general) – $220,000 [8,000+ jobs]
Hospitalist – $220,000 [1,300+ jobs]
Psychiatrist – $218,000 [1,500+ jobs]
Senior Corporate Counsel – $175,000 [300+ jobs]
Staff Software Engineer – $168,000 [350+ jobs]
Dentist – $165,000 [2,000+ jobs]
Director of Engineering – $164,000 [400+ jobs]
Tax Director – $161,000 [150+ jobs]
Director Product Management – $160,000 [300+ jobs]
Patent Attorney – $160,000 [100+ jobs]
Anesthetist – $156,000 [600+ jobs]
Senior Software Engineering Manager – $155,000 [200+ jobs]
Global Marketing Director – $155,000 [60+ jobs]
Podiatrist – $150,000 [70+ jobs]
The most important salary question is whether you’re earning a fair wage, whether you’re at one of the highest paying jobs or one of the lowest. After all, the average U.S. worker is estimated to earn $5K below what they’re worth.
And as always, if you’re looking at our favorite sector, tech jobs, get ready for the kinda bizarre interview questions.