---
title: "Highest-Paying Jobs"
description: "Every occupation in the bank ranked by national median annual wage, with projected growth, annual openings and typical entry requirement beside each one.…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/highest-paying-jobs"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Highest-Paying Jobs

Every occupation in the bank ranked by national median annual wage, with projected growth, annual openings and typical entry requirement beside each one. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is what usually ranks for this question, reports physician pay as a median "equal to or greater than $239,200 per year" and says the differences in pay between physician specialties are not available. That ceiling is a publication rule rather than a measurement: OEWS withholds any wage at or above $239,200 a year and prints "#" in its place. In the OEWS May 2025 national file no wage field is withheld, so this list gives the exact median BLS measured for each occupation, including the specialties the Handbook folds into "$239,200 or more". The ceiling still applies to 86 state wage rows across 19 occupations, which are shown as "$239,200+" on the salary-by-state pages and are never used to rank anything here.

30 occupations, in the ranked order the career bank computed. Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Growth figures are BLS Employment Projections and education is the BLS "typical education needed for entry".

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected growth | Typical education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Pediatric Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatric-surgeon) | $559,030 | +1.5% | Doctorate |
| 2 | [Cardiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cardiologist) | $496,010 | +4.1% | Doctorate |
| 3 | [Radiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/radiologist) | $420,860 | +2.7% | Doctorate |
| 4 | [Anesthesiologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/anesthesiologist) | $391,490 | +3.2% | Doctorate |
| 5 | [Orthopedic Surgeon, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthopedic-surgeon) | $358,550 | +4.1% | Doctorate |
| 6 | [Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon](https://nuecareer.com/careers/oral-and-maxillofacial-surgeon) | $352,220 | +4.1% | Doctorate |
| 7 | [Emergency Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-medicine-physician) | $335,550 | +2.7% | Doctorate |
| 8 | [Dermatologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dermatologist) | $328,730 | +6.4% | Doctorate |
| 9 | [Pathologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pathologist) | $312,400 | +4.2% | Doctorate |
| 10 | [Prosthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prosthodontist) | $311,180 | +4.5% | Doctorate |
| 11 | [Ophthalmologist, Except Pediatric](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ophthalmologist) | $300,080 | +4.3% | Doctorate |
| 12 | [Obstetrician and Gynecologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/obstetrician-and-gynecologist) | $292,910 | +1.2% | Doctorate |
| 13 | [Orthodontist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/orthodontist) | $289,140 | +4.4% | Doctorate |
| 14 | [Psychiatrist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/psychiatrist) | $281,870 | +6.1% | Doctorate |
| 15 | [Allergist and Immunologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/allergist-and-immunologist) | $265,930 | +2.5% | Doctorate |
| 16 | [General Internal Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-internal-medicine-physician) | $256,560 | +3.3% | Doctorate |
| 17 | [Neurologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/neurologist) | $248,560 | +5.4% | Doctorate |
| 18 | [Family Medicine Physician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/family-medicine-physician) | $244,180 | +2.7% | Doctorate |
| 19 | [Nurse Anesthetist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nurse-anesthetist) | $236,590 | +8.6% | Master's |
| 20 | [Airline Pilot](https://nuecareer.com/careers/airline-pilot) | $232,140 | +3.9% | Bachelor's |
| 21 | [Chief Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chief-executive) | $213,990 | +4.3% | Bachelor's |
| 22 | [Pediatrician, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/pediatrician-general) | $210,040 | +0.8% | Doctorate |
| 23 | [Industrial-Organizational Psychologist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-organizational-psychologist) | $193,950 | +6.3% | Master's |
| 24 | [IT Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/it-manager) | $175,140 | +15.2% | Bachelor's |
| 25 | [Physicist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/physicist) | $172,250 | +4.0% | Doctorate |
| 26 | [Architectural and Engineering Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/architectural-and-engineering-manager) | $171,270 | +3.8% | Bachelor's |
| 27 | [Dentist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dentist) | $170,950 | +4.1% | Doctorate |
| 28 | [Natural Sciences Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/natural-sciences-manager) | $167,220 | +3.7% | Bachelor's |
| 29 | [Marketing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/marketing-manager) | $166,790 | +6.6% | Bachelor's |
| 30 | [Financial Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-manager) | $166,570 | +14.8% | Bachelor's |

Full record for any row, including wage percentiles and state-level pay: https://nuecareer.com/careers/{slug} or https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/{slug}.

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/collections/highest-paying-jobs