25 careers and what they actually pay at every level

From software engineers to surgeons, here's exactly what workers earn at every stage of 25 in-demand careers, using the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data

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Choosing a career based on passion is good advice up to a point. But knowing what that career actually pays — not just at the start, but five, ten, and twenty years in — is the kind of information that changes decisions. A job that looks modest at entry level may offer steep growth as you advance. Another that starts well can plateau early, leaving workers stuck well below what they expected. The difference between the two can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a working life.

Salary data across U.S. occupations are collected and published annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics through its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program. The figures track what workers actually earn — base wages, excluding bonuses and benefits — across industries and experience levels. They offer the most reliable national benchmarks available for comparing what different careers pay at different stages.

This article draws on BLS data, primarily from the May 2024 survey cycle (the most recent complete dataset at the time of writing), to lay out what 25 careers pay from entry level through mid-career to senior and executive roles. Each career uses a consistent framework: what someone typically earns in their first few years, what the median worker earns, and what the top earners — usually those in the 90th percentile — take home.

A few things worth knowing before reading. These are national medians, which means geography matters. A software engineer in San Francisco earns considerably more than the national median; a teacher in rural Mississippi earns less. Industry sector also matters — the same accounting skills pay differently in finance versus a nonprofit. And the figures here are base salary only; total compensation in roles with equity, commission, or strong bonus structures can look quite different.

What the data does not show is how long it takes to move from one level to the next, or whether that progression is common or exceptional in a given field. Some careers reward tenure almost automatically; others are winner-take-most, where advancement depends on a combination of skill, timing, and institutional access. Both patterns appear in the careers covered here.

The 25 occupations covered span healthcare, technology, law, finance, education, engineering, and the creative industries. They were selected for their breadth across the economy and for the quality and consistency of the available wage data.

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Software development has been among the best-compensated professions in the U.S. for more than a decade, and the gap between entry-level pay and senior pay remains wide. According to BLS data from May 2024, the national median annual wage for software developers was $133,080. The lowest 10 percent of earners — a reasonable proxy for entry-level workers — made less than $79,850 per year. The top 10 percent made more than $211,450.

At the entry level, most developers start in roles like junior developer, associate software engineer, or software engineer I. Salaries in this range typically fall between $80,000 and $100,000 depending on location and employer. Tech hubs like the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and New York push those numbers considerably higher; a new graduate joining a major technology company in these cities may start at $120,000 to $160,000 when signing bonuses and equity are excluded from the base calculation.

Mid-career developers — those with roughly five to ten years of experience — tend to move into roles with titles like senior software engineer or software engineer II or III. This is where the national median lives, around $130,000 to $140,000 in base pay. At larger companies, senior engineers often earn $150,000 to $180,000 in base salary alone, with total compensation including equity that can push well past that.

At the top end, the progression branches. Some developers move into staff or principal engineering roles, which carry higher technical authority and pay. Others move into engineering management — becoming a manager, director, or VP of engineering — where total compensation often exceeds $200,000 at established technology companies and can reach multiples of that at the largest firms. The BLS top-10-percent figure of $211,450 represents what workers in higher-cost markets or senior technical roles earn as a base; actual top-of-market pay for experienced engineers at the largest U.S. technology companies is considerably higher.

Demand for software developers is projected to grow 15 percent from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations. That growth, combined with a persistent gap between the supply of qualified developers and employer demand, has kept wages high and given workers in this field unusual negotiating leverage across the career arc.

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Registered nursing is one of the largest occupations in the U.S. economy and one of the most stable from a demand perspective. The BLS reported a median annual wage of $101,420 for registered nurses in May 2025 (up from $98,430 in May 2024), with employment of roughly 3.4 million workers nationally. The occupation runs from entry-level staff nursing through specialized and leadership roles that pay substantially more.

New registered nurses typically earn between $60,000 and $75,000 in their first year, with significant variation by state and facility type. California, Hawaii, and Oregon tend to pay the highest nursing wages in the country, partly because of cost of living and partly because of active union representation. New RNs in those states may start above $80,000. In lower-wage states, entry-level salaries can be closer to $55,000.

After three to five years, nurses typically advance to senior staff nurse or charge nurse roles, earning in the $80,000 to $95,000 range. Specialization accelerates pay growth considerably. Critical care nurses, emergency nurses, and perioperative nurses consistently earn more than their counterparts in general medical-surgical units, reflecting the technical complexity and physical demands of those settings.

The highest-paying nursing roles require advanced education. Nurse practitioners, who hold a master's or doctoral degree and can diagnose and treat patients independently in most states, earned a median wage of $137,300 in May 2025. Certified registered nurse anesthetists — who administer anesthesia and are among the most autonomous nursing professionals — had a median annual wage of $248,320 in May 2025, putting them among the highest-paid healthcare professionals who are not physicians. These figures illustrate how significantly the ceiling rises when nurses pursue advanced practice credentials.

Nursing leadership, including roles like nurse manager, director of nursing, or chief nursing officer, follows a different pay structure that blends clinical expertise with administrative responsibility. Directors and CNOs at large hospital systems can earn $150,000 to $250,000 or more, though these positions are relatively few in number compared to the total nursing workforce.

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Legal careers carry some of the highest educational costs of any profession — three years of law school on top of a bachelor's degree — and the pay at the top end is among the highest of any field. The economics of the legal profession are also unusually bifurcated, with a stark difference between lawyers who enter BigLaw (large private law firms) and those who go into public service, nonprofit work, or solo practice.

The BLS does not break out lawyer wages by career level in the same detail as some other occupations, but it does capture the overall distribution. In May 2024, the median annual wage for lawyers was $145,760. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $66,470, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $239,200. That upper figure is a floor rather than a ceiling — many senior partners at large firms earn several times the 90th-percentile threshold.

Entry-level pay for lawyers varies sharply by employer. Associates at the nation's largest firms operate on a lockstep pay scale: as of 2024, first-year associates at firms following the Cravath scale earned a base salary of $225,000. Public defenders and legal aid attorneys, by contrast, often start at $55,000 to $70,000, with salaries that rise slowly and top out far below the private sector. Federal government lawyers typically start between $70,000 and $90,000 depending on the agency.

Mid-career lawyers in private practice, typically those at the associate level from years three through eight, earn between $150,000 and $300,000 at large firms on the standard scale. In-house counsel at corporations occupies a wide range, from $120,000 for a junior in-house attorney at a mid-size company to $300,000 or more for a senior counsel or deputy general counsel at a major company.

Partnership at a large firm is the traditional endpoint of the BigLaw track, and equity partners at the most profitable firms earn well into seven figures annually. General counsel roles at Fortune 500 companies are among the highest-paid legal positions outside of private equity or hedge fund legal work. The legal profession rewards seniority and specialization, particularly in areas like mergers and acquisitions, patent litigation, and complex regulatory work.

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Physicians sit at the top of the healthcare earnings pyramid. The BLS classifies most physician specialties above its highest reportable wage threshold, which for 2024 was $239,200. This means the published figures for most physician specialties show a median annual wage of $239,200 or higher — the actual median is above that number, but the survey does not capture it precisely.

New physicians are not really "entry level" in the conventional sense. After four years of medical school and three to seven years of residency and potentially fellowship training, doctors begin independent practice at an age that would constitute mid-career in most other professions. During residency, pay is relatively modest: most residents earned between $60,000 and $80,000 in 2024 depending on program year and location. The training period is long, and the debt burden is significant — the average medical school graduate carries over $200,000 in student loans.

The first year of independent practice for a physician is typically as an employee of a hospital system, group practice, or academic medical center. At this stage, compensation depends heavily on specialty. Primary care physicians — family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics — typically earn between $220,000 and $280,000 in their first attending year. Surgical specialties and procedural specialists command more from the start.

Physician compensation grows with experience and, significantly, with ownership stake in a practice. A primary care physician who becomes a partner in a physician-owned group practice will earn more than an employed physician in the same specialty. Over a full career, most physicians who remain in clinical practice see their earnings rise meaningfully into their 40s and early 50s before leveling off or declining if they reduce their clinical hours.

The highest-paid physician specialties — including neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, and interventional cardiology — have median earnings well above $400,000. Orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons frequently earn $600,000 to $800,000 or more in high-volume practices. These figures reflect both the length and cost of training and the market value of technically complex, high-stakes procedures.

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Data science became one of the defining careers of the 2010s, and wages have remained strong into the 2020s even as the labor market for the role has grown more competitive. The BLS reported a median annual wage of $112,590 for data scientists in May 2024, with employment of approximately 246,000 workers nationally. The occupation is projected to grow 34 percent from 2024 to 2034, one of the fastest growth rates of any occupation tracked by the federal government.

Entry-level data scientists — typically holding a bachelor's degree in statistics, computer science, mathematics, or a related field — generally start between $75,000 and $100,000 depending on the employer and location. Tech companies in major metropolitan areas pay at the higher end of that range; entry-level data scientists at large technology firms in San Francisco or Seattle may start above $110,000 in base salary. At smaller companies or in sectors like government, education, or nonprofits, starting salaries are lower.

A graduate degree tends to improve starting pay. Data scientists with a master's degree often enter the workforce at $95,000 to $120,000, and those with PhDs — particularly in quantitative fields like statistics, machine learning, or economics — may start at $120,000 or higher, especially in research-oriented roles at technology companies or financial institutions.

Mid-career data scientists in senior individual contributor roles typically earn between $120,000 and $160,000 nationally. Specialization matters considerably at this stage: machine learning engineers and AI researchers command premiums over general data scientists, reflecting the demand for skills that are harder to find. In the financial sector, quantitative analysts and data scientists at hedge funds and investment banks can earn significantly more than their counterparts in other industries, with total compensation often exceeding $200,000.

At the senior and leadership levels, data scientists who move into management — as data science managers, directors of analytics, or chief data officers — see further pay increases. CDOs at large organizations earn $200,000 to $350,000 or more. Those who remain in senior individual contributor roles (staff data scientist, principal data scientist) also earn above the median, often $150,000 to $200,000 or more at major technology companies.

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Financial analysts work across a broad swath of industries — investment banks, asset managers, corporate finance departments, insurance companies, and consulting firms — and the variation in pay across those settings is substantial. The BLS reported a median annual wage of $101,910 for financial analysts in May 2024. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $57,420, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $175,260. For financial analysts working specifically in securities and investment activities, the median was higher: $124,050.

At the entry level, most financial analysts hold the........

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