10 Highest Paying Jobs Without A College Degree

So student debt has increased by a whopping 91% in the past decade, leading to Americans owing a record-breaking 1.73 trillion dollars.

Therefore, today we’re gonna talk about 10 alternative high paid jobs that don’t require a college degree so that we can find the answer to the question, if going to university is all that it’s stacked up to be.

Especially when you can just become a friend of Mr. Beast and be paid thousands for it. But seriously, in my opinion, these jobs definitely have the potential to make you a millionaire. If you invest your money wisely and correctly along the way, anything is possible. To be honest with you.

I wasn’t very good at school, which caused me to leave at 16 with no qualifications, but I didn’t let that stop me from becoming a millionaire so if I can do it I’m sure that you can.

Maybe you’ll decide on whether you want to go to college, or maybe you’re just interested in different job options out there.

Number one, a skilled trades person. Once you have a trade, no one could take this away from you. This includes everything from plumbers and electricians to carpenters and even elevator mechanics.

These skills are in really high demand and can justify wages up to $68,000 a year. This has also grown each year as the number of skilled jobs is far out pacing the supply of workers.

This could be due to more people choosing to go down the university route and not learning a trade. It’s even estimated that by 2028, there will be 3 million job vacancies in the skilled trades.

This is an amazing opportunity, but it’s also pretty scary thought as well because these jobs are a crucial part of our society. I mean, I’m pretty good with my hands, but I don’t ever mess with the plumbing or the electrics.

Most trades can be learned on the job without the need for higher education, which is great. As you can get right into making some money at the same time as making yourself more valuable.

When I left school, this is exactly what I did. I got an apprenticeship and I learned how to become a carpenter. I’ve never regretted this decision as I’ve used this skill throughout my life.

And I knew I had something to fall back on if I needed it. Some people look down on trades people, but get this. If you compare a doctor’s wealth to a plumber’s, then it reportedly takes the doctor until 41 years old to catch up.

This is because of the time that doctors spend studying and building up student debt.

Number two, an air traffic controller. Imagine sitting at this really cool desk, earning up to $122,000 a year. Are you interested? Because I’m definitely jealous of that view. Air traffic controllers are responsible for directing the safe movement of aircraft arriving and departing from an airport in order to prevent collisions.

It’s a bit like the conductor of an orchestra of metal birds. They’re crucial to the running of an airport to keep hundreds of passengers safe. Although you can make good money as an air traffic controller, it can be very stressful, especially when you have to deal with people like me.

I actually got in trouble with air traffic control once when I was flying a small airplane from a place called Biggin Hill to Shoreham airport. Unfortunately I left a little bit late and I called up Shoreham and it turns out they had already closed the airport.

On top of that, it was getting dark and it was illegal for me to fly at night, being the Maverick that I was, I decided to land anyway, because I had no other options.

And this caused the air traffic controller, a great deal of stress. He even called me up to the tower to reprimand me and inform me I had to fill out loads of forms for an out of house landing and that I would hear from the authorities.

I guess he was a nice guy because I never heard any more about it, but I was sure never to be late again. So if you think you can handle situations like that, then the good news is air traffic controlling is projected to grow 3% through 2026.

So there are plenty of new opportunities popping up, but as you’ve probably guessed, they’re not going to let you control hundreds of planes without any training. Luckily you rarely require any sort of university degree. In fact, most air traffic controllers can do on the job training after completing high school.

Number three, becoming an influencer. Did you know that more kids now dream of becoming a professional YouTuber rather than becoming an astronaut according to a recent study?

I hardly find the surprise in this. They see their favorite influencers having the time of their lives while making millions per year. It’s easy to dismiss this one as a dream or not a real job.

And that’s what a lot of people my age do. But I think this is a really interesting industry. The amount companies spend on influencers in the U.S. alone is going to surpass three billion dollars, which is a growth of more than 30% from last year.

This means that we have more money being pumped into the industry. There’ll be a lot of space for new influencers. I mean, if a boomer like me can start TikTok as a bit of fun during the pandemic and rack up nearly 7 million followers, then doesn’t that just prove it.

I’ve now even started a YouTube channel, where I’m going to post quick finance and business tips, as well as a podcast channel with my son, where we discuss all things business and investing from an old and young perspective.

At the end of the day, influencers offer something that TV just can’t compete with real authentic content. Which therefore means you don’t need expensive equipment or a university degree to get stuck in.

Number four is a radiographer. How does flooding people with radiation and earning up to $69,000 a year sound to you? You just have to be careful not to turn anyone into the Hulk.

Radiographers also known as radiologic technologist, perform x-rays CT scans, MRIs, and other forms of medical imaging to help diagnose illnesses and conditions. This is commonly confused with radiology. However, radiographers do not interpret the results or make a diagnosis.

If you have ever had a passion for helping people and wanted to go into something medical related, then a radiography is one of the highest paying jobs that doesn’t require a degree.

Actually, my sister trained as one in the UK and that skill allowed her to emigrate to Australia where that job is in high demand. And she is earning a massive salary.

The demand for radiographers is set to remain strong due to a very large aging population in need of imaging to diagnose and treat medical conditions.

What are you looking at? I’m only 25? Well, I feel 25. It’s easy enough to get started after completing a two year job focus course while I admit, this does take a little bit of training. It isn’t nearly as time consuming as a college degree, and it’s a lot less expensive too.

Number five, an executive assistant. It can be extremely fun being the right hand person of a business leader. You’re both striving towards a shared mission and you can earn up to a very respectable $68,000 a year.

Working your way up to being an executive assistant can be very rewarding as it means doing different jobs almost every single day.

My assistant does everything from organizing my schedule to helping me with strategic planning, by working at this level in a company you’re also surrounded by lots of people who are wealthier than you.

This automatically means you’ll start leveling up and find ways to earn even more. I’ve often seen assistants go on to become CEOs of their own businesses as they learned so much under the wing of a successful person.

So it’s not all about the money you’re earning. It’s also about the knowledge and the connections. My assistant responded to a post I made on Instagram and performed really well in his interview.

He doesn’t have a university degree, but that really doesn’t matter to me. He came across as driven, dedicated, and very business savvy.

I have nothing against university, but sometimes I feel like it can knock the spark out of people. If you’re never told what you can’t do, then you seem to have less limits on your potential.

So based on my own experience of hiring an assistant, I would say the best thing you can do is follow the leaders of businesses that you’re interested in working for on social media.

Whenever one of them posts about a job opening, you can be one of the first to throw your hat in the ring. And that’s exactly what my current assistant did. And it worked out very well. Even if he can’t make a decent cup of coffee.

Number six, a construction site manager. The demand for construction managers will reportedly grow 8% by 2029, which is much faster than the 4% projected growth in all other occupations, you can expect to earn an annual wage of between $50,000 and $126,000.

A site manager within the construction industry is responsible for overseeing operations of the whole site on a day to day basis. And making sure a project comes in on time and on budget.

And as many of you know, I’m building out my north wing at the moment and my project manager, he only bothers me about 30 times a day. To be a site manager you need to be good at problem solving, have strong communication skills and have an extensive knowledge of the construction process.

If you don’t have a degree, then you can eventually move into a site manager role after gaining experience working in the construction industry over a number of years.

Number seven an artist like videographers, editors and writers. Back when I was younger, artists always used to be broke, but now with the explosion of the internet, I am desperately looking for people that can tell stories about my products to increase the sales.

The new generation is highly visual, and we need artists to connect and sell products to them, which makes their skills extremely valuable. The earning potential with this is truly unlimited.

It’s just all depends on your ability to drive clicks and sales. My son started specializing in videography, editing, and content writing. Four years later he’s earning more than $200,000 a year and doing the job he loves.

The beauty of this career is that a university degree is nothing compared with real-world results and experience. When I spend money on my business, I want to be sure that I’m going to get good return.

Now, if I have to pick between someone with a degree and someone with experience and some results, then I would always pick the latter. You will, of course, need to invest a lot of time into learning these skills, but luckily they can all be self-taught using books and the internet.

Number eight, an insurance claims adjuster. These people own tiny devices that allow them to access people’s memories and check if they’re lying or not about their insurance claims. Oh, hang on.

To be honest though, I wouldn’t be surprised if they started doing this in the future. In all seriousness, the top 10% of insurance claim investigators earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year and the lowest 10% of adjusters earn just over $40,000 a year.

They’re a bit like Sherlock Holmes as they have to gather up loads of information and details to work out what happened in the instant and find a fair settlement price.

Their job performance is evaluated based on how many claims they can successfully handle without involving supervisors or corporate lawyers. So it’s highly suited for competitive people. All that’s required for this job is a high school diploma. This is because of the nature of the job.

Analytical and critical thinking skills are essential qualities for these individuals.

Number nine is a professional gaming athlete. Being paid good money to play computer games competitively sounds like a dream come true. The average professional gamer earns $60,000 per year.

And if you’re really good, you can actually earn millions. This is really crazy to me because when I was younger, I used to have to go down the arcade when I wanted to play games.

But it does make sense as whenever there is a lot of attention on something, then people are going to naturally want to see the best of the best go head to head.

Gamers make their money in a few different ways, such as tournament prizes, salaries from being in a team, bonuses for doing well, sponsors, and of course, live streaming. Being a professional gamer is not an easy career to take on. It requires thousands of hours of gaming experience, just like any elite level sport.

So although the top professional players earn millions each year, the harsh truth is only a few people enjoy that kind of salary. I’m not saying this to discourage you in any way, because if you put your mind to it and train every day, then I’m sure it’s achievable.

Number 10 is a high ticket commission sales person. Imagine selling a product for more than $200,000 and getting a sweet 6% commission. That’s a $12,000 pay day.

High ticket items are high price products or services. These items can include expensive products like cars, jewelries, houses, even services like coaching, webinars, and training.

Many high ticket sales people choose to work on a commission basis, selling other people’s products or services to a list of potential clients who have already shown interest.

This means that once you learn how to sell, essentially your income is unlimited. One of the main reasons I was able to become as successful as I am is that I learned how to sell from a very young age.

It’s such an important skill. And if you learn it, then you’ll never really struggle for money.

It’s also worth mentioning accountancy, financial advising, and computer programming are also great career paths that do not require college degrees and you can earn some sweet bank.

So choosing, if you should go to college is a big decision and it’s highly dependent on what you decide to study.

If the job that you wish to pursue requires a degree then I would agree that college is definitely worth it. As you have a clear return on investment, but if you choose to study a course with no real aim, then this might be a very expensive mistake.

With more people than ever before going to university it’s becoming a huge business and degrees are holding less and less value. I like to call it degree inflation.

By investing wisely along the way, all the jobs mentioned here have the potential to make you a millionaire without stepping foot in any university.

So if you’re like me and school really wasn’t for you, then it’s not the end of the world. There are plenty of options out there. It’s all about doing what you want to do and not letting society’s expectations shape your future.

If you want to know how I invest my money in stocks, ETF’s and index funds, gain access to educational materials, and the world’s greatest community of investors to help you invest — better. Join the Insider weekly newsletter for investing. https://sendfox.com/insider

Make sure to subscribe if you wanna grow your wealth.