These 20 Jobs Will Pay You Over $100,000 — If You Want To Work In These Industries

Money can’t buy happiness, or at least that’s what folks with money say. According to Forbes, attractive fixed salary is eighth on the list of top 10 factors for on-the-job employee happiness. Even though salary isn’t the number one factor in job satisfaction, it does matter. If you’re looking to make a high income, Indeed.com created a list of the top 20 jobs that pay over $100,000. While none of the jobs on the list are that surprising, (sorry, you probably won’t make bank as an underwater basket weaver), it does serve as a timely reminder of which fields usually produce high earners.

Jobs that require specialized skills are usually harder to fill, and thus, pay more. Think about it — if you spend 14 years in school to be a doctor, you’d expect to highly compensated, too. The first six jobs on Indeed’s list are in the medical field. Neurologists lead the pack at $217,837. Neurologists have at least one undergraduate degree, a graduate degree in medicine, and several years of neurosurgical residency training.

With mental health being such an important issue in our society, I was happy to see psychiatrists at number two on the list, with an average salary of $194,563. Psychiatrists diagnose and help treat and prevent mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. The field is expected to grow by 15 percent within the next 10 years.

Nurse practitioners are at the bottom of the top 20, but don’t feel sorry for nurses. According to Indeed, they’re bringing in $103,233 a year, and they're high in demand. The U.S. Bureau Labor of Statistics predicts the nursing field will grow by 31 percent by 2026.

Tech jobs also dominate the list. Machine learning engineers, android developers, and senior software engineers all bring in well over $100,000 each year. Can’t live without Siri? Machine learning engineers are the ones to thank for virtual personal assistants. They also work on those eerily realistic robots that the internet is fascinated with. Android developers have to be multilingual in computer languages. Java, Android SDK, and C++ are common in the android development space.

Although those in the tech industry don’t usually have to go to school for over a decade, most engineers and developers do have some form of higher education. If you don’t have a degree, though, don’t worry, you can still be an engineer. 60 percent of software engineers don’t have a degree in computer science, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute.

There are jobs on the list that one could theoretically get with a liberal arts degree, such as director of product management, but a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) is preferred. McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, describes product managers as “the glue that bind together the many functions that touch a product.” It’s an important, demanding role, but those who succeed in the position make on average $147,363 a year.

An MBA is also on the pathway to become a director of business development, a role that averages an annual salary of $107,789. If you’re a people person, this may be the job for you. Directors of business development foster and grow relationships to advance company goals. You can use your social skills to advance your career.

Indeed used its own salary data to create this informative list, and it isn’t just for those on the job market. While it’s important for individuals to stay up-to-date on salary data to make sure they’re getting compensated fairly, employers must also stay competitive by providing attractive salary and benefits or they will lose talent to other companies.