The One Industry Where You Can Make A Six-Figure Salary Right Out of College
Graduating college doesn't guarantee a six-figure salary anymore, however, there is one industry that does.
This article is more than 2 years old
In this day and age, graduating from college doesn’t solidify a high-paying job. A degree was once a guaranteed way to obtain a six-figure salary, but that isn’t a reality anymore. With so many young people scrambling for entry-level jobs, securing an occupation with a decent wage is more complicated than ever. One industry in particular, though, offers lucrative salaries for young people starting the business.
Management consulting is an occupation where new graduates receive six-figure salaries for entry-level positions. Even before the pandemic started, management consulting jobs and their respective firms were accruing thousands of clients and ample money. Now more than ever, businesses are looking for external consultants to aid in improving their company’s performance. It’s one of the only industries to increase monetarily throughout the pandemic steadily, and young people are slowly catching on to the lucrative aspect of the practice.
Management consulting joins other humungous industries like banking and tech to form the highest paying industries for entry-level positions. Consulting has seen fresh graduates get starting six-figure salary jobs, from $120,000 to $140,000. Big tech entry positions at Apple or Google have salaries between those figures, and banks can offer even higher-paying ones. The largest banking corporations experienced a bump in entry-level pay, rising more than 30% for first-year employees. Outside of the United States, those working in big banks are also receiving profitable entry jobs. At banks in London, it’s standard for first-year employees to make over $110,000 as a starting wage.
Though many university graduates haven’t found monetary success in most industries, a few industries have seen slow increases in their entry-level wages. Consulting, among a couple of other occupations, has seen pay increases over the last year. Pay for jobs requiring a degree in computer science went up by 7% from 2021, with an average of $72,00 a year for entry-level positions. For other occupations like management consulting and banking, there’s more room for six-figure salaries for new employees due to high demand in the industry.
Some industries have used six-figure salaries to incentivize the best workers to apply while justifying their preposterous 70-hour work weeks. Long, arduous working conditions are relatively standard for tech jobs, so paying excessive amounts for that labor is the only way to encourage the best applicants to apply. With an oversaturated market of newly graduated young people, companies are attempting to find employees who actually have the right talent and qualifications.
For those wanting to get into management consultants, the number of vacant jobs has increased over the past couple of years. Analysts have noticed consulting firms double in size every 12 to 18 months, leaving room for recent graduates to make their way into the industry. Six-figure salaries are following the trend of consulting growth since the field is more in-demand than ever before. Firms are often in competition with each other as well, which makes employers continuously escalate their wages to attract the best, most qualified candidates. Though many recent graduates are scrambling for the same minimum-wage entry-level jobs, a few industries give hope to twentysomethings looking to obtain six-figure salaries.
