Highest paying jobs that you don’t need a qualification for – and you could get up to £90,000 a year
TOP jobs paying high wages don’t always require a formal education.
Job site Adzuna has listed 20 roles that don’t require a university education and pay more than the average UK annual salary of £33,000.
Some of them even pay a whopping £90,000 a year, and for many positions “knowledge and skills are far more important than formal education”, according to Andrew Hunter, the co-founder of Adzuna.
The job with the highest annual salary which pays workers up to £90,000 a year is the role of casino gaming manager.
Andrew said: “A university degree is no longer the only ticket to a high paying career, as more industries look to expand their talent pools to a more diverse range of applicants and offer on the job training.
“The IT sector is a good example of this, boasting many high paying roles like scrum master, ethical hacker, and software developer open to jobseekers without a computer science qualification.”
Scrum masters, for example, are earning upwards of £62,000 a year.
A scrum master acts as a project manager for IT and tech development.
There are courses you can take to train in being a scum master, but there’s no strict path into the job.
Commercial pilots, ethical hackers and air traffic controllers are also among the jobs paying around £60,000 a year.
And while a degree isn’t needed for most of these jobs, there may be other requirements.
For example, you don’t need to study at university to become a commercial pilot, but you’ll usually need five GCSEs including English, Science, and Maths.
With the cost of a university education adding up to £57,000 on average, it could pay to pursue one of the high-paying careers that avoid taking on student loan debts and studying costs.
The average wage in the UK in the last tax year was around £33,000.
The national living wage in the UK, which is the minimum for those aged over 23, is rising to £10.42 next month.
That works out as an annual salary of just over £19,600 for full-time workers.
Those in the following roles can also expect to earn salaries between £50,000 and £60,000 a year:
- Software developer
- Train driver
- Construction manager
- Oil Rig operative
- Security manager
- Games developer
- Project manager
Eight other jobs pay workers without formal education salaries between £43,000 and £46,000 a year:
- Buying manager
- Translator
- Accountant
- Private chef
- Army officer
- Digital marketing manager
- Landscape designer
- ChatGPT prompt engineer
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Plus, 20 side hustles – from being paid to watch movies to recycling old till receipts – could see you make hundreds of pounds each year.
But remember, if you do go down the self-employment route you’ll need to tell HMRC about your earnings.
You can make up to £1,000 a year from selling items online or odd jobs like dog-sitting, without having to tell HMRC or pay tax on your earnings.
Anything above this must be declared and you’ll need to fill out a self-assessment tax return.
The tax you pay depends on your other income.
MoneySavingExpert’s income tax calculator can help you do the math.