Filed under: Careers, Career Change
By Kathryn Dill
Top-dollar salaries are often associated with corner offices, operating rooms and trading floors. But there are some other, unexpected arenas in which professionals can bring in six figure salaries -- such as elevator shafts, roulette tables and home economics classrooms.
To collect some of the most surprising six-figure jobs, Forbes examined data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which releases Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates each year for more than 820 occupations, refined by geography and industry. The top 10 percent of earners in these 15 occupations make $100,000 a year or more.
Broadcast and Analyze This
Though journalism is often cited as a field with anemic compensation at the entry- and mid-career levels, broadcast news analysts, those who analyze and interpret news for a television audience, earn a mean annual salary of $84,710 with the top earners pulling in as much as $186,260. The best-paying state for broadcast news analysts is Florida.
Running a tight ship can also translate to a nice paycheck. Captains, mates and pilots of water vessels who "command or supervise operations of ships and water vessels, such as tugboats and ferry boats" earn a healthy mean salary of $75,580, with the top earners bringing in as much as $122,590. The top-earning state for these seafarers is Georgia.
Whether or not you think of them on your trips up and down, elevator installers are crucial to safe and efficient building operations. Those who "assemble, install, repair, or maintain electric or hydraulic freight or passenger elevators, escalators, or dumbwaiters" earn a mean annual salary of $76,220. Top-earners can take home as much as $108,130. Hawaii is the top-earning state for these professionals.
15 High-Paying Fields
It may surprise you to learn that these 15 occupations pay six-figure salaries. The top earning 10 percent of professionals in each field earn $100,000 or more, according to data from the BLS.
