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The average UK employee earnt around £32,000 in 2021, while earning a salary of £50,000 or more puts employees in the top 13 per cent of Brits according to the Survey of Personal Incomes.
The airline industry – while less in demand during the pandemic – commands high salaries and favour natural aptitude over academic background, with commercial pilot roles averaging around £60,800, and traffic controllers receiving on average around £50,000.
Trade jobs also appeared on the list, from plumber to carpenter and electrician. With many skilled plumbers having reached retirement age and a lack of funding for apprenticeships, plumbers are in high demand – and with an average salary of almost £38,000, it could be worth retraining.
Job search engine Adzuna analysed over 1.2 million job adverts available in November 2021 to reveal the 25 highest paid positions on offer that don’t require a university degree.
“2022 is a year of financial opportunity for degreeless jobseekers,” said Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna.
“Tight labour market conditions mean employers are casting their hiring nets wider than ever before to catch candidates with the right skills – and they’re offering tantalising pay packets as bait. For many roles, self-taught skills are more important than a formal education, particularly in soaring sectors like IT and trade and construction,” he continued.
The UK is seeing a staffing crisis in industries from prisons to hospitality, the NHS and scaffolding, with a labour shortage or ‘participation gap’ of one million people, as described by Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
This has created a climate where employees are in high demand, prompting many to demand better pay or benefits from their bosses, or hand in their resignation letter for a better job elsewhere. Almost one million workers switched jobs over the summer last year.
There’s never been a better time to think about making a career change.
Here’s the full list of 25 jobs that don’t require a degree and their average salary:
- Scrum master, £66,663
- Construction manager, £63,172
- Ethical hacker, £63,172
- Commercial pilot, £60,105
- Food safety inspector, £60,105
- Private chauffeur, £60,000
- Buying manager, £54,690
- Casino gaming manager, £52,000
- Air traffic controller, £50,136
- Games developer, £50,618
- Oil rig operative, £47,795
- HR manager £45,929
- Operations manager £43,475
- Army officer, £43,405
- Social media manager, £43,325
- Security manager, £41,964
- Influencer marketing manager £40,677
- Mining construction £40,364
- Carpenter, £39,949
- Estate agent, £38,014
- Plumber, £37,989
- Electrician, £37,537
- Sales executive, £36,554
- Executive assistant, £36,263
- Hazardous waste management, £36,227