The Best Paying Careers in 2025

For some a career is about passion but for many it’s a means to an end. Perhaps your passions lie outside of work or perhaps you’re the kind of person who can dig into any problem so long as it excites them. And if any job will do, then you might as well pick the best paying job you can.

But what are the top paying careers in 2025? Do they fit your skillset and interests? And will they still be high paying jobs in years to come?

Top Paying Work From Home Jobs

Work-from-home jobs are some of the most sought after careers. They offer a level of freedom and accessibility that can be truly life changing while still allowing people to earn a full time wage.

The highest paying jobs you can do online, perhaps unsurprisingly, tend to be tech and computer based. These include everything from design and development—particularly UX/UI design—to cybersecurity and network engineering.

That said, computer jobs aren’t the only field to offer lucrative careers from home. The business and finance has also adopted work from home/hybrid working practices as has marketing—arguably the most lucrative industry there is. After all, when you get right down to it, every company is a marketing company.

Best Paying Retail Jobs

Of course, marketing is one thing but selling is another and if you’re good at shifting product then many companies will pay big money for your talent.

Now, retail is one of those rare industries where you can start at the bottom and work your way up to the top largely just through being a great employee. As such, the best paying retail jobs tend to be those in managerial and directing positions—taking on the responsibility for more junior members of staff.

District managers also tend to be well paid as their role often involves a lot of travel. That said, this can be a stressful balance for some to maintain.

Specialised skills can also lead to well paying retail jobs, especially in B2B sectors where in order to sell a product you often have to have an even more detailed understanding of the industry and the needs of other companies.

Highest paying Computer Jobs

We talked before about work-from-home computer based roles but on the whole computing jobs are—perhaps unsurprisingly—very well paid.

For example, even junior developers often start off at around £30K per annum while senior developers often pull six figure salaries. Cybersecurity, although less flashy, can be equally well paid as it brings immense value to just about any company.

In fact, when it comes to tech roles, about the only jobs that don’t always have the potential to provide an incredibly lucrative income are IT support and teaching. And even those two examples have their exceptions.

With that being said, it probably seems like tech is the perfect field to be and for many is. However, all that might be about to change.

High Paying Jobs of the Future

For many years, becoming a developer has been a gold standard career for many—like becoming a lawyer or a doctor. In 2025, that situation is slowly changing with many junior developer roles drying up. In fact, many in the industry now say it’s harder than ever to get your start as a developer and that what was once a safe career option is now something of a gamble.

Why is this? Well, you may have already guessed the answer. Perhaps more than any other industry, tech is being absolutely uprooted by AI. AI coding, while not perfect, has replaced many junior roles and is continuing to do so, shrinking teams. Meanwhile those who are getting into the industry require a much higher bar of skill.

Put simply, over the next few years fewer developers are going to have to handle more work in less time, with AI taking on that extra load.

And, as we’ve already said, this problem isn’t unique to the tech industry. In practice, it now looks like many of the safest careers are those that AI either can’t do or shouldn’t do for practical reasons. These include manual labour—such as building and plumbing—as well as jobs that require an element of human decision making such as legal professionals, psychologists, and designers.