On March 29th 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their newest update of the Occupational Outlook Handbook which provides profiles for hundreds of different occupations including job descriptions, median pay, education necessary, number of jobs in the U.S., and even job outlook for the decade from 2010 – 2020. A couple of days ago, we looked at those jobs that the BLS estimated to have the largest number of new jobs created during the 2010 -2020 decade. Unfortunately, we found that 13 out of the top most prevalent jobs were low paying positions like fast food preparation or daycare workers. So, yesterday we looked at the BLS list of Fastest Growing Occupations although we found some overlap in the positions of the fastest growing vs. the most plentiful, we found many more good paying jobs on the fastest growing list, in both the construction industry and the health care industry.
Today we are going to look at the top 20 highest paying positions. As you would expect these positions require a combination of high level skill, experience and education. Interestingly, of the top six, four are in the area of dental medicine with oral surgeons coming in first and orthodontists coming in second each earning over $166,400 per year. Unfortunately the BLS chart doesn’t break down the top few positions other than to say that it was over $166,400 per year but according to Salary.com – Oral Surgeons earn an average of $246,834 with 10% of Oral Surgeons earning over $290,802 per year. Salary.com estimates Orthodontists average less than the $166,400 the BLS says with the median salary of “only” $125,137 although the top 10% of earners earn more than $175,943.
The other top 18 paying positions are: [Read more…] about Top Paying Jobs