Jobs That Pay Top Wages – Without a Formal Education

New data has revealed the roles that pay the highest wages – and don’t always require a formal education.

Job site Adzuna has listed the jobs that don’t need a university education and pay more than the average UK annual salary of £33,000.

Some of the roles listed pay over £90,000 a year, and for many positions “knowledge and skills are far more important than formal education”, according to Andrew Hunter, the co-founder of Adzuna.

The job with the highest annual salary which pays workers up to £90,000 a year is the role of a Casino Gaming Manager.

Hunter adds “A university degree is no longer the only ticket to a high-paying career, as more industries look to expand their talent pools to a more diverse range of applicants and offer on-the-job training.

“The IT sector is a good example of this, boasting many high paying roles like scrum master, ethical hacker, and software developer open to jobseekers without a computer science qualification.”

Other high-paid jobs that do not require a degree include, commercial pilots, ethical hackers, and air traffic controllers – all of which can command an annual salary of £60,000. If you are keen to become a commercial pilot, you’ll usually need to show evidence of passing five GCSEs including English, Science, and Maths.

Many people entering the job market are keen to avoid a university education – which costs up to £57,000 on average – and are choosing to pursue one of the high-paying careers that avoid taking on student loan debts and studying costs.

The following roles that do not require a university degree can command salaries between £50,000 and £60,000 a year:

  1. Software developer
  2. Train driver
  3. Construction manager
  4. Oil Rig operative
  5. Security manager
  6. Games developer
  7. Project manager

Eight other jobs pay workers without a formal education salaries between £43,000 and £46,000 a year:

  1. Buying manager
  2. Translator
  3. Accountant
  4. Private chef
  5. Army officer
  6. Digital marketing manager
  7. Landscape designer
  8. ChatGPT prompt engineer

The average wage in the UK in the last tax year was around £33,000, with the national living wage in the UK rising to £10.42 next month. That works out as an annual salary of just over £19,600 for full-time workers.