What Are the Highest Paying Finance Jobs?

Financial managers earn the highest median pay of any finance occupation the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks: $156,100 a year in the May 2023 OEWS data. Actuaries rank second at $120,000. Investment banking and private equity pay more in practice, but their bonus-driven compensation sits outside what BLS measures. Below is the full ranked list, with the entry path and license behind each career.

Every salary on this page is a median from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, with the release year attached to every figure. A median means half the people in that occupation earn more and half earn less, and BLS collects it from employers directly. That makes it harder to game than what you'll find elsewhere on this search: job boards blend self-reported salaries of unknown seniority, and the Reddit threads and YouTube tier lists that rank here skew toward the loudest earners at the biggest firms.

Two honest caveats before you read the table as gospel. First, OEWS counts base pay plus commissions and production bonuses. It excludes nonproduction bonuses, the year-end kind that makes up most of an investment banker's compensation, along with stock and profit sharing. Second, the survey caps reported wages. In the May 2023 data, anything above $239,200 a year is recorded at that cap. Both quirks understate the top of the market, which is why the banking section further down exists.

Four credentials gate the better-paying half of this list. Each is granted by a different body, and knowing which one owns your target license saves you from paying for the wrong prep course.

The AICPA writes the Uniform CPA Exam, but your license comes from the board of accountancy in the state where you practice. Most states require 150 semester hours of education, which is why so many accountants add a fifth year or a master's, plus a year or more of supervised experience under a licensed CPA. Figure five to six years from the start of a bachelor's to holding the license. The payoff is concrete. Audit signing authority and the partner track at public accounting firms are reserved for CPAs, and controller and financial manager postings routinely list the license as required or strongly preferred.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) administers the exams behind brokerage and sales roles. You can sit the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam on your own, no sponsor needed, and passing it before you apply is a cheap way to show a hiring manager you're serious. The Series 7, which authorizes you to sell securities, requires a firm to sponsor you, and most states add a Series 63 or 66 on top. The practical takeaway: getting hired is the hard part, and the licensing follows within months on the employer's schedule.

Two bodies grant actuarial credentials. The Society of Actuaries (SOA) covers life and health insurance plus retirement work; the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) covers property and casualty insurance. Ambitious students pass the first two exams, Probability (P) and Financial Mathematics (FM), before graduating, which is what separates candidates who get interviews from those who don't. Associateship takes several more years of exams while working, and fellowship several beyond that. Employers pay for study time and grant raises per exam passed, making this one of the few careers where income climbs on a published schedule.

No law requires the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, but asset management and equity research treat it as the standard. Three exam levels plus a work-experience requirement mean most charterholders spend about four years earning it while employed. Pursue it if portfolio management or research is the goal. Skip it if your target is corporate finance, where the CPA carries more weight for the same effort.

Most of the table needs a bachelor's degree and nothing else on day one. Where a license exists, it comes later and usually on the employer's dime.

The financial manager job at the top of the table is a destination, and this is the path to it. Analysts who add an accounting credential or a track record of owning a forecast get promoted into it. Nobody is hired into the role at 22, which is exactly why its median beats everything else. The occupation is made of people with a decade of compounding experience.

The Reddit threads and tier lists that rank for this search quote pay far above anything in my table, and they aren't wrong. They're measuring something OEWS structurally cannot capture, for three reasons.

The seven-figure numbers you see attached to private equity partners come from industry compensation surveys and self-reports. They're useful directionally and unverifiable individually, so treat any precise figure for these roles with suspicion, including the ones on pages ranking above this one. If banking is your goal, entry is the bottleneck rather than the ceiling. Analyst recruiting starts absurdly early, sometimes two years before the start date, and a tight application matters more here than almost anywhere. Our investment banker cover letter examples show what the format expects.

Yes, in specific lanes, and the honest version is that the ceiling arrives sooner in most of them. FINRA has no degree requirement for its exams. If a brokerage sponsors you, the Series 7 is open to you, and plenty of successful brokers started without a bachelor's. Mortgage loan officers license through the NMLS (Nationwide Multistate Licensing System), which requires coursework and an exam, no diploma. Insurance sales works the same way through state licenses.

The proven no-degree ladder in banking runs teller, personal banker, licensed banker, advisor. Our bank teller resume example shows how to write the first rung so the second one calls you back. What stays closed without a degree is the top of the table. Investment banks and private equity firms recruit from campus pipelines, and actuarial employers filter on math coursework. If those are the target, get the degree; routing around it costs more years than it saves.

Switchers do best when they arrive with the credential already in progress, because it answers the screener's first doubt before it gets asked. A teacher heading for actuarial work should pass exam P before applying. An engineer aiming at financial analysis can point to CFA Level I as proof of commitment. An operations manager with accounting exposure may already hold credits that count toward the CPA's 150 hours.

The second half of the move is the resume. Hiring managers filter for finance evidence, and experience framed in your old field's language won't surface it. Lead with a budget you managed or a forecast you built, in whatever role you held, and quantify it. Our career change guide covers the sequencing from decision to first day.

Finance screeners read fast and look for four kinds of evidence. A generic "responsible for financial reporting" bullet fails every one of them.

Before you send anything, test the resume against the actual posting. Paste the job into Roleframe and the fit report shows how your document scores for that specific role, including the exact keywords the recruiter filters on that you're missing. The guide to checking a resume against a job description walks through the process. Two mechanical points cost finance candidates interviews. Put licenses where a parser expects them; where to put certifications on a resume covers placement by job type. And submit as PDF, so the version the screener sees matches the one you built.