If you’re looking for a career that pays well, doesn’t require a college degree, and offers great job security, you may want to consider a blue-collar job.
The U.S. skilled labor market faces “record pressure,” according to new research from McKinsey & Co., as more workers age and fewer young people train for jobs such as construction workers, plumbers, welders and further.
Labor shortages, amplified by disruptions to in-person work and material shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, have created more competition for talent and, as a result, wages for skilled jobs have increased by more than 20 % since the first quarter of 2020, McKinsey & Co. reports.
Demand for skilled workers is expected to increase over the next decade and remain high in the United States due to infrastructure needs, an increase in real estate redevelopment, and investments in renewable energy.
The most in-demand jobs that companies are hiring for right now (that don’t require a degree) are construction, manufacturing and plumbing, according to data from Payscale and ZipRecruiter shared exclusively with CNBC Make It:
- Construction Superintendent
Median salary: $84,600 - Manufacturing production manager
Median salary: $71,800 - Plumber
Median salary: $61,500
It is important to note that there are different levels of certification for some manual jobs, including plumbers and electricians. For plumbers, there are three levels: apprentice, journeyman and master.
If you want to work as a journeyman plumber, you’ll need to work as an apprentice with a licensed master plumber for at least 2 years, depending on your state’s requirements, according to Indeed.
To compile the list, Payscale analyzed 85,715 salary profiles of American workers with no education beyond a high school diploma. Salary data was collected between April 2022 and April 2024.
From that sample, Payscale identified a list of jobs and ranked them by median salary for workers without a college degree.
Then, to determine which high-paying jobs are in the highest demand, ZipRecruiter analyzed hiring trends for these positions over the past six months to see which jobs saw the largest increase in openings.
All of these jobs saw at least a 16% increase in openings on ZipRecruiter between October 2023 and March 2024. Construction superintendents have seen the largest increase in demand, with openings increasing more than 128%.
Other high-paying blue-collar jobs that have been in slightly less demand but are still hiring at a good pace include fleet managers, who supervise drivers and their vehicles, such as delivery trucks, owned or leased by their companies, and official electricians.
The median salary for fleet managers without degrees is $64,600, while journeyman electricians earn $62,600 on average, according to Payscale.
Careers in construction, manufacturing and home services, which have historically prioritized skills over degrees in hiring, still present some of the best opportunities for people to earn up to six figures without going to college, says Ruth Thomas, pay equity strategist at Payscale.
Although more companies are removing college degree requirements for jobs, skills-based hiring remains a newer trend that “has not become common practice” across industries yet, Thomas adds. .
This article was originally published in English by Morgan Smith for our sister network CNBC.com. For more from CNBC go here.
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