People get into technical professions for all sorts of reasons. Some folks become techies because they like the appreciation and respect they get from their coworkers, for instance. Others become technical workers so they can tackle tough and challenging issues that force them to continually raise their games and become better, more seasoned employees. The main attraction of tech jobs, however, has been and probably always will be the high pay most tech jobs command. When you start your tech career, you expect to make a decent living, but which tech jobs pay the best from the get-go?
We’ve developed this guide to answer that question. We’ll show you which tech jobs will net you an excellent salary even if you have little or no experience. We’ve examined Glassdoor’s salary charts and have the facts and figures to point you in the right direction. With our help, you’ll be able to start your career off right and start earning big bucks from the jump. Every second we spend talking about it instead of showing you is a second you won’t be working, though, so let’s get started!
Web Designer
You might be intimidated by the thought of designing websites if you don’t have any prior experience, but you’d be surprised at how easy it is to get started in the field. If you have a good eye for aesthetics and a solid grasp of end-user behavior and expectations, you’ll be able to find a good web designer job that offers a fine starting salary. Web design has a bit of an apprentice-journeyman-master training aspect to it, so you can easily find a junior web designer gig that lets you learn at the feet of a seasoned pro.
Junior web designers will make about $50,000 a year when they start out, although your pay will rapidly increase as you accrue design experience. You’ll need to train yourself before taking a web design position—a bootcamp will give you the skills you need. You can also pick up the training on your own by learning how to use the Adobe Creative Suite as well as HTML and CSS.
Social Media Manager
Want to land a gig on the cutting edge of society? How about a job that didn’t even exist a decade or so ago? Social media has been the up-and-coming leader in new business technology lately, and there’s a serious lack of people who know how to take advantage of it. People who can effectively shape a company’s social media profile and message are like gold to modern businesses, and you can get in on the ground floor of this business revolution as a social media manager.
Because the social media field is so new, you don’t need a ton of experience to find a good gig. You’ll need to be adept at accessing any reports and data you might need to support or guide your messaging, and you should be comfortable working with social calendars as well. Be familiar with growth strategy patterns, and make sure you have solid writing and scheduling tool chops, too. You’ll make about $50,000 a year as a social media manager, although your experience will dictate your pay to some degree.
Web Developer
Do you have a knack for seeing how things fit together to create a unified whole? Do you enjoy learning new languages and platforms? If any of this strikes a chord with you, you might be suited to a career as a web developer. Unlike a web designer, a web developer works with the nuts and bolts that go into building a website. As a web developer, you’ll become familiar with what goes into building a website, from soup to nuts.
Junior web developers usually work directly under senior developers to help them pick up the skills and processes needed to create modern websites. As a new web developer, you’ll make an annual salary of about $55,000, although that will change in a hurry as you add knowledge and experience. You’ll need to have a fair amount of knowledge going into this job and should bone up on coding languages such as CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails, to name a few. To acquire that knowledge, you can opt to study on your own or attend a coding bootcamp.
Data Analyst
In today’s business environment, data is king. The more information a company has about its customers, their preferences, and their buying habits, the more flexible and responsive it can be in responding to changing needs. Data analysts are key to the data acquisition cycle—they identify the data to be collected and ensure that they are correctly analyzed, compiled, and interpreted so they can be used to improve company performance.
As a new data analyst, you’ll start with a solid annual salary of about $61,000, and you can expect that to shoot way up as you gain more experience. You’ll need to have an affinity for organization to excel as a data analyst. Learn XML and JavaScript and get familiar with segmentation and data mining, too. It doesn’t hurt to have healthy design skills along with your data knowledge, as you will need to present your findings in an appealing and user-friendly way.
That’s the whole deal, my lovelies. Tech careers are hot and pay well, but it’s hard to find one that will get you a good paycheck right out of the gate. But now you know which tech jobs will net you a good salary as an entry-level worker. Before long, you’ll be putting your new tech skills to use and making a great living.
What’s your opinion of high-paying entry-level tech jobs? Let us know your thoughts in our comments section below.
If you’re interested in finding out more about high-paying entry-level tech jobs, download the Career Karma app.
