When one is looking for a high-paying job, others typically suggest career fields such as medicine, tech, finance, etc. However, there are many jobs out there that pay well without people realizing it…
That’s why when Redditor u/Titothelama asked, “What is a job that pays extremely well but no one realizes it?” thousands of people shared their uncommon jobs that make bank. From tuning pianos to growing flowers, here are 17 of the most surprising responses:
1.”Biomedical equipment technician here! I fix medical equipment in hospitals. It typically requires a two-year degree. I started slightly above $30/hour and now make over $40/hour working on radiology equipment. It’s similar to IT, but only a relatively small part of the job is working with computers.”
“There’s a two-year degree specific to the industry, but with the workforce shortage, it’s not a requirement. I know many people who’ve moved into this field with a regular two-year technical degree. If you grew up taking stuff apart and figuring out how it works, then this is a perfect job to continue that skill set.
Like many other trades, not many people know about it, so there’s good job security. There are lots of employees retiring, and not a lot of people coming in. You need to be comfortable working around patients at times or being in the OR, which can make it stressful at times, but the money is pretty good for a job that mostly has you inside in the AC and working normal business hours (except if you’re on-call).”
2.”Foundation repair salesperson. All I do is use a tool that tells me how your home is settling, then I tell you what the tool told me. I don’t even do the labor. I just get you to agree to have someone else from my company come do the hard work.”
“My first year, I made a little over $110k; now I routinely make over $200k. I had a GED and zero experience when I was hired.”
3.”I’ve got a chef gig with a school district. I have full benefits and a pension. I work a 40-hour week, no nights, weekends, or holidays for $55/hour. It’s not a union position, but I have a clause that gets me the same percentage of a pay raise that the teachers do.”
“After 30 years in restaurants working 75+ hours weekly for crappy pay, it’s a dream come true.”
4.”This is more per hour than gross pay, but every piano tuner I’ve ever spoken to has discussed how good the work/life balance is, and how if they need more money, they just accept more jobs. They also talk about how they’re beating jobs away with a stick because there just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“A first-year tuner makes around $150/hour, $40k/year on average, and it goes up to $80k/year as you acquire your own regulars or move to higher cost-of-living areas.
Piano tuners are always talking about how badly needed they are. A while back, an orchestra was offering scholarships to people wanting to become tuners because there weren’t enough in the area.
You’d think that there wouldn’t be that many people who want their pianos tuned, but even if you leave out the lackadaisical hobbyist who ‘forgets’ for 15 years, there are still churches, schools, music professionals, concert halls, theaters, etc. that often have pianos that require tuning.”
5.”Film/TV/video industry ‘grips.’ They’re responsible for a number of things, but primarily rigging the camera(s) to various structures and shaping lighting fixtures with different textiles and colored gels/diffusions. The lowest-paid position within the Grip department can make roughly $600–750 for a 10-hour day here in the US, and it doesn’t require any kind of formal education or certifications to get started. In general, they get paid for the full 10 hours even if the day ends up being significantly shorter.”
“On top of that, the entire industry operates according to California’s laws about overtime, even when production happens in other states. Basically, overtime is accrued every hour over eight within a single work day, instead of simply having to work more than 40 hours within one week, which is great when you’re booked on short-term one-to-four day jobs.”
6.”I dropped out of high school and got my GED. I’m now the chief mate on a tug boat. I make $730 per day, and I’m paid to travel to and from the boat. I also get full benefits and six months of vacation every year.”
“The next step up is Captain, which bumps my pay up to $1,000 per day.”
7.”I’m the real estate agent for a homebuilding company. It’s like being a realtor without looking for the business. I get to have a say in what the entire neighborhood looks like, deciding what house goes on what lot, colors, options, etc., and I get to watch families buy their first home and grow, but it’s harder than we get credit for. Is it really difficult? No, but it’s a lot of acrobatics at times.”
“The last three years, with the exception of this year, my wife and I cleared $400–$550k. This year was difficult, but we are still on track for $250k.
The biggest thing is that it gets to your head that you’re the best and the money is endless. You aren’t, and it isn’t. You have to save for the rainy days, because they do come, and it’s when you least expect them. I know too many people with $1,600 car payments and expensive lifestyles they can’t let go of, and years like this are kicking them in the ass.
When I tell friends who aren’t in the industry, I feel like I’m trying to sell them a religion or make them join an MLM when, in reality, all I see are people who are smarter than me working harder than I am and making way less. I wish they’d hear me out on it.”
8.”Working as a banquet server in the hotel industry. You can make between $40–$100 an hour, depending on the hotel. Work is very easy. The only downside is that it’s sort of seasonal.”
“Most people have two to four jobs working in different hotels to offset the slow weeks/months. One hotel might be slow, but the others will be busy. You can pick and choose where you want to work when you’re on call in most of them.
On the plus side, they always feed you, so you don’t have to waste money on food.”
9.”Radiation protection at a nuclear power plant. Most of these jobs only require a two-year degree. At the moment, pay caps out at $56/hour.”
“Most jobs in nuclear pay very well, even in lower-tier positions.
If you can pass a background check and can deal with never getting high again, you can make $150–200k easily.”
10.”It’s niche, but if you grow flowers for florists, you can make bank. This was my first year doing it, but we sold a bunch of zinnias on demand and to florists this year, along with thousands of specialty sunflowers. The sunflowers are pretty much hands-off once they are planted with a drip line (they shelter out weeds pretty fast).”
“We’re selling them to florists at $1.50 per stem and have made a few thousand in only a few weeks. The rest are all spoken for before they have even bloomed. We’re to make about $30k in flower sales this year, and it was just a test year. Our local competitors make a few hundred thousand a year via florist sales, direct sales, and ‘u-pick.'”
11.”I’ve got a friend who started welding for barges in the Vancouver harbour right out of high school. He was making $65 an hour after a year of apprenticeship. He told me some days he wouldn’t even weld; he would just sit around and wait for all the high permits and safety conditions to pass inspection.”
“If that surpassed his hours of work that day, he would leave and still be paid his hourly rate. Every two hours, he would take a break, and after five hours, he was done for the day.
Not a bad gig!”
12.”My dad cleans pools. He leaves the house around 6:30 a.m. and gets back home around 11:00 a.m. He makes around $125k per year. Obviously, he could work longer hours, but he doesn’t want to risk getting skin cancer.”
“Working for houses near each other is the key. My dad works primarily in three giant gated communities the whole week. If houses are near each other, you could do around eight pools in an hour easily, whereas if you are just starting out and you have to drive in between, you may only be able to do three in an hour.”
13.”Hospital monitor tech: It’s not ‘big’ money, but it is $50–75k per year to sit in a room doing nothing but staring at monitors all day. You don’t need any actual medical training or experience beyond basic CPR certifications, and you don’t have to do any medical work. If something happens to one of the patients, you hit the ‘Call doctor’ button, then stand back and let the doctors do their jobs.”
“It’s the easiest and lowest effort job for that salary, and it’s always an understaffed position because no one realizes that it exists or that it pays well.”
14.”Ditch digger: I make $46/hour, can work almost unlimited overtime, and get a $65/day bonus for being on-call (Minimum of three hours pay if on-call phone rings). I get time and a half pay after eight hours in a day, double pay after 12 hours, and if a day goes for over 13 hours, I get sent home.”
“If you are reliable, it’s pretty easy to make $150–200k per year.”
15.”Go into specialized sales: I’m a network and cybersecurity engineer by trade. If I were working in ‘post-sales,’ aka ‘support,’ I would be making around $80–100k, depending on the company. I’d be under stress constantly with the possibility that I’d be on-call 24/7. And everyone blames support when something doesn’t work.”
“Now, I use the same knowledge and skills, but I don’t have to deal with any of the BS. Instead, I use my knowledge to sell people the things they need, and I make more than double what I would make in post-sales. I spend my week sitting in on conference calls and then telling the bosses what to buy.
About twice a week, I meet clients for lunch. Everyone loves me because I give them good, sound advice. I help them find fixes to new problems they’re having, as opposed to solving problems they have with existing products that are supposed to work.”
16.”Onboard IT Systems Specialist for oil exploration vessels (glorified IT help desk). Six months on the boat, then you drop off at the next port and you’re on vacation for six months, then you’re flown out to the next port to board the boat (not always the same boat) for another six months.”
“I was fresh out of a Bachelor of Information Technology course with a starting salary of $190k.
What is the work like? Well, the 12-hour day is spent mostly doing nothing but watching dashboards and running systems checklists. Most things are just ‘turn it off and on again’ (by following the predefined processes).”
17.Lastly, “If you can board dogs overnight in your home, walk large packs of dogs on leash at the same time, and develop a large client list, you can earn a shocking amount of money.”
“If you have one daily pack walk of 10–12 dogs on leashes (which would include your overnighters), pick up all the dogs in a van, and drop them off after the walk, you can charge $50 or more per dog per walk. If the walk is 1.5 hours, and the pick up and drop off time adds around four hours, you can work six days per week or roughly 35 hours per week total (minus all the care you provide the dogs boarded overnight in your home), and average $500 daily easily. In fact, you can make a lot more in well-to-do areas.
You have to work Saturdays, though, and it takes time to gain momentum, especially in acquiring clients. Turning down bookings with good clients is also a big no-no, so finding free time can be difficult. Oh, and you have to be an accomplished dog trainer to pull this off, which requires years of experience.”
Did any of these jobs surprise you? Do you have an uncommon job that pays well? Tell us about it in the comments.
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