---
title: "What can you do with a human resources degree?"
description: "14 careers human resources graduates commonly move into, with BLS median pay, projected growth and entry requirements for each."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors/human-resources"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T07:20:09.337Z"
---

# What can you do with a human resources degree?

**What the degree involves:** Employment law, compensation, staffing, training design, and organisational behaviour.

Human resources is one of the few business specialisms with a clear entry-level job title waiting at the end of the degree. The destinations split between the generalist track, which broadens into management, and the specialist ones — compensation, benefits, payroll, labour relations, training — which go deeper and are usually better paid earlier.

14 common destinations, ordered most common first rather than highest paid first. 0 of 14 have a master's or a doctoral or professional degree as their BLS typical entry education, and 11 of 14 are projected to grow. A major is a body of study, not a job assignment: these are destinations of people who took the degree, not what the degree entitles anyone to.

| # | Occupation | Median annual wage | Projected change | Openings a year | Typical entry education |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Human Resources Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-specialist) | $75,940 | +6.2% | 81,800 | Bachelor's |
| 2 | Human Resources Assistant, Except Payroll and Timekeeping | $50,610 | -7.1% | 9,000 | Associate's |
| 3 | [Payroll and Timekeeping Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/payroll-and-timekeeping-clerk) | $58,260 | -16.7% | 13,000 | High school |
| 4 | [Training and Development Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/training-and-development-specialist) | $69,280 | +10.8% | 43,900 | Bachelor's |
| 5 | Compensation, Benefit, and Job Analysis Specialist | $78,210 | +5.3% | 8,500 | Bachelor's |
| 6 | Labor Relations Specialist | $95,420 | -0.1% | 5,100 | Bachelor's |
| 7 | [Equal Opportunity Representative and Officer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/equal-opportunity-representative-and-officer) | $80,730 | +3.0% | 33,300 | Bachelor's |
| 8 | [Administrative Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/administrative-services-manager) | $114,130 | +4.6% | 23,200 | Bachelor's |
| 9 | [Management Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/management-analyst) | $101,860 | +8.8% | 98,100 | Bachelor's |
| 10 | [Human Resources Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/human-resources-manager) | $149,280 | +5.0% | 17,900 | Bachelor's |
| 11 | Compensation and Benefits Manager | $149,230 | +0.2% | 1,500 | Bachelor's |
| 12 | Training and Development Manager | $133,000 | +5.8% | 3,800 | Bachelor's |
| 13 | [General and Operations Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/general-and-operations-manager) | $105,770 | +4.4% | 308,700 | Bachelor's |
| 14 | Arbitrator, Mediator, and Conciliator | $75,530 | +4.3% | 300 | Bachelor's |

Wages are BLS OEWS, May 2025. Projected change, annual openings and typical entry education are BLS Employment Projections. Occupation descriptions are O\*NET. Nothing on this page is estimated and no figure is generated by an AI model.

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}. Other majors: https://nuecareer.com/careers/majors

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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