Jacquelyn Smith of Business Insider writes, ‘You may be the hardest-working, most motivated employee in your company — but if you’re in a field that has terrible growth opportunities, raises and promotions may not be in the cards for you.
That’s right: Moving up and making more has a lot to do with your skills and work ethic — but not everything.’
“Some professions just haven’t displayed the same level of growth as others in recent years,” says AJ Smith, the managing editor of SmartAsset, a financial tools startup.
Knowing that, SmartAsset decided to identify the best jobs for pay and growth opportunities.
To compile its list, SmartAsset used data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for more than 1,000 distinct jobs in 2012 and 2013 to find the current average salary, one-year percentage growth in the number of jobs available, and salary growth numbers for each profession.
Unsurprisingly, family and general practitioners land at No. 1.
These “general practice doctors” earn an average of $ 176,530 a year and saw a 9.8% job growth rate in the past year. These professionals also experienced 2.6% salary growth year-over-year, on average.
Rounding out the top three are psychiatrists and dentists.
“People may be most surprised by No. 4 on our list, which is reinforcing iron and rebar workers,” says Smith. “But while the salary for this construction job is lower than all the other jobs on the list, the opportunity and salary growth are both huge — in the double digits.”
10. Astronomers
Average annual salary: $ 110,450
One-year opportunity growth: -18.0%
One-year salary growth: +14.5%
