Highest-paying jobs in the UK

Want to know what the highest-paying jobs in the UK are? We list them here – including roles you don’t need a degree for.

University tuition fees may soon rise to £10,500 a year, according to reports which suggest the government is planning the first increase in seven years to keep up with inflation. Fees have been frozen at £9,750 a year since 2017.

The change will take the cost of a typical three-year degree to £31,500, before living costs are added, and renew focus on whether getting a degree is worth the significant financial investment.

Whether you have a degree or not, or you are considering a career change, you may be wondering which jobs make the most money. So in this article, we cover:

Read more: Minimum wages 2024: 24 changes to your money

What are the highest-paying jobs in the UK?

Chief executive and senior-level management roles in business are perhaps unsurprisingly the highest-paid jobs in the UK, according to analysis of official ONS data by SavetheStudent.

Also known as managing directors, the median salary for a CEO or chief executive is £84,131.

Marketing, sales and advertising directors, PR and IT specialists, doctors, headteachers and airline pilots also come in the top ten highest-paid jobs. The full list is:

• Chief executive officers: £84,131
• Marketing, sales and advertising directors: £83,015
• IT directors: £80,000
• PR and communications directors: £79,886
• Logistics, warehousing and transport directors: £72,177
• Air traffic controller and pilots: £71,676
• Finance directors: £70,000
• Functional managers and directors: £69,933
• Doctors: £66,031
• Head teachers: £66,014

It is very difficult to definitively determine what the highest-paid jobs are. There can be a lot of variation between roles depending on your experience, individual companies and location.

For example, a teacher in inner London can expect to be paid between £36,745 and £56,959 a year, according to the Department of Education. The same teacher in the rest of England would receive between £30,000 and £46,525.

The average solicitor’s salary in the UK is £62,000, according to the Law Society. However there is wide regional variation:

• London: £88,000
• South of England: £56,000
• Midlands and Wales: £46,000
• North of England: £43,000

What are the highest-paying companies in the UK?

Technology and finance firms made up the majority of the highest-paying companies in the UK in 2022, according to Glassdoor, the online jobs firm.

The top ten companies hand out an average base salary of over £93,000 to staff. This places their average employee in the top 4% of UK taxpayers:

1. Citadel – financial services company (£121,759)
2. Contino – business management consultant (£108,128)
3. White & Case – international law firm (£102,115)
4. G-Research – quantitative finance research firm (£101,066)
5. Google Cloud – cloud computing services (£99,677)
6. Palantir Technologies – software company (£98,095)
7. Squarepoint Capital – investment services (£96,933)
8. Bank of America Merill Lynch (£94,393)
9. MongoDB – developer data platform (£93,993)
10. Pegasystems – software company (£93,844)

What are the best companies to work for in the UK?

The highest-paying roles aren’t necessarily the roles with the highest satisfaction scores.

The best companies to work for take into account work-life balance, a good team and culture, as well as great pay. They also have perks, strong leadership and good career growth.

Glassdoor ranks tech companies highly in its top 50 list with Apple, Microsoft and Google all making the cut. Management consultancy firms do even better. Bain and Company come top and Boston Consulting Group is third.

Based on the five criteria above, Glassdoor ranked the following as the best companies to work for in the UK in 2024:

1. Bain & Company 
2. Mastercard 
3. Housing21 
4. Equal Experts 
5. Netcompany 
6. Boston Consulting Group 
7. Airbuse 
8. SAP
9. Mott MacDonald 
10. Gartner 
11. Cisco
12. The Lego Group
13. Google
14. Financial Times
15. Arm
16. EasyJet
17. NFU Mutual
18. Johnson & Johnson
19. Informa
20. Arcadis

What are the best university degrees for job prospects?

University is not the only route to a good job but many positions do require a degree. Competition is fierce once you get out into the real world of work so it is important to do your research when choosing what to study. 

There are more than 65,000 university courses on offer. The subject areas which offer the highest employment rates for graduates is medicine and dentistry, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

More than 99% of people can expect to be employed in this sector within six months of graduating with these qualifications. Dentistry graduates, for example, can expect a starting salary £35,000 a year. 

Veterinary science comes second with almost 96% of graduates finding employment within six months of graduation, commanding a £32,000 wage.

More than 90% of graduates in allied medicine subjects (such as pharmacy and physiotherapy), as well as education and architecture find work within six months of leaving university.

What are the best-paid graduate jobs?

University degrees don’t come cheap but many companies offer lucrative graduate training schemes and graduate positions with a view to developing their next generation of leaders.

So if you are looking for an immediate return on your university investment, these are the best-paid graduate jobs according to graduate career resource website, Milkround:

1. Investment Banker £37,000–£65,000
2. Management Consultant £49,000–£55,000
3. Trainee Solicitor £28,000–£55,000
4. Graduate Sales Manager (Retail) £41,000–£49,000
5. Software Developer £35,000–£50,000
6. Graduate Petroleum Engineer £36,000–£47,000
7. Actuary £33,000–£37,000
8. Civil Servant – £29,000–£34,000
9. Civil Engineer – £26,000–£34,000
10. Clinical Scientist – £31,000–£32,000

Note that salaries will vary between organisations and location. Graduate roles are likely to be better paid in London than the rest of the UK.

What high-paying jobs don’t need degrees?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a degree to get a highly paid job and, in fact, a third of graduates earn less than those who go straight into the job market from school, according to the ONS.

In fact, some of the most famous and richest CEOs in the world, such as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never graduated from university. 

You don’t need a degree to be a train or tram driver, positions that also feature in the top highest-paying jobs in the UK.

While a degree may help, experience and knowledge is equally valuable in many industries – although you may need to carry out continuing career development courses.

Industries which provide on-the-job training could be a good bet, for example the police. Starting salaries for a police constable are £30,069 and with more years’ service can rise to £46,044. Promotion within the police can also mean considerably higher pay, for example a detective inspector can earn £63,198 outside London while a chief inspector could earn £68,082. These salaries will be higher in London too.

Personal trainers (earning up to £60,000), estate agents (£49,000), nutrition consultants (£44,000) and recruitment consultants (£30,000) are the top paying jobs that you don’t need a degree for, according to data from FutureFit:

1. Personal trainer: average salary – £23,353, highest salary – £60,000
2. Estate agents: average salary – £21,250, highest salary – £41,000
3. Nutrition coach:  average salary – £28,000, highest salary – £44,000
4. Recruitment consultant:  average salary – £30,344, highest salary – £38,000
5. Pilates instructors:  average salary – £25,000, highest salary – £52,000
6. Firefighter: average salary – £44,027, highest salary – £64,000
7. Health & wellbeing coach:  average salary – £35,000, highest salary – £74,400
8. Police constable: average salary – £35,763, highest salary – £46,044
9. Marketing executive:  average salary – £29,650, highest salary – £33,290
10. Computer games tester: average salary – £31,090, highest salary – £40,000

Which jobs will receive the biggest pay rises in 2024?

The sectors that had higher-than-average pay increases in 2023 included sustainability, accountancy and finance and procurement, according to Hays, the recruitment company. 

Increased demand for energy/carbon managers, electrical design engineers, valve technicians, machine learning scientists, senior sustainability consultant, credit controllers, payroll administrators and supply chain managers pushed up wages for these roles.

IT and cyber security managers can expect to receive some of the biggest wages (£81,500 a year) as the world becomes increasingly digitised. 

The most sought-after employees, however, are expected to be in AI, sustainability, clinical healthcare, data, cloud computing, machine learning engineering and cybersecurity, according to Bernard Marr, author of Future Skills: The 20 skills and competencies everyone needs to succeed in a digital world.

UK minimum wage changes in 2024

In April 2024, a change was made to the minimum wage.

The national minimum – known as the National Living Wage – was increased by more than £1 an hour, from £10.42 an hour to £11.44. 

Eligibility for the National Living Wage has also been extended by lowering the age limit to 21-year-olds for the first time.  It means 21-year-olds and 22-year-olds got a 12.4% increase, from £10.18 an hour to £11.44.

National minimum wage rates for younger workers also increased. It means 18-20-year-olds get £8.60 an hour now – a £1.11 hourly pay rise.  

What are the highest-paying tech jobs in the UK?

The technology industry in the UK is thriving and competition for the best talent is fierce. Valued at more than £800,000, the industry is worth five times that of France and Sweden, and double that of Germany, according to the government. 

There are thousands of roles to choose from but the tech job with the highest average salary in the UK is senior software engineer at £67,494, according to data from Indeed.

Data engineers can also expect to earn around £60,000 on average, while developers can expect an average salary of £50,000 a year.

What is London weighting?

You are likely to be paid more working in London than in other areas of the UK to reflect the higher cost of living in the capital.

This supplement to your wage is often referred to as the London Weighting or the London Allowance. The concept first appeared in a 1974 report of the Pay Board.

There is no set amount or agreed universal method for calculating how much you will receive. Instead, it will vary depending on your employer and industry. 

Research from the Trust for London recommends a minimum London weighting of £9,600 in inner London and £6,549 in outer London is needed to cover a basic standard of living in the capital.

What is the gender pay gap?

Since 2017 the government has introduced measures to try and tackle the gender pay gap. Since then employers with 250 staff or more are required to publish their gender pay gap data.

The video below explains what the gender pay gap is, and how you can check your company’s data.