Yahoo Finance Top 10 best-paid jobs after Aussies graduate: '$90,000 to $108,000'
Dentists, doctors and social workers are pulling in the biggest salaries straight out of university.
Knowing what you want to do in life can come from long-held passions, life experiences or the potential to earn as much money as possible. With the cost-of-living crisis and hard-to-pay-off HECS debts, some Aussies might want to pick a career based purely on the amount coming into their bank accounts every pay cycle after they graduate.
While that might not guarantee work satisfaction or fulfilment, it can go a long way in affording basic necessities and a roof over your head. A survey from Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching not only revealed how much a graduate can earn in a specific field but also the median wage once you have established yourself.
RELATED
Centrelink recipients warned over ‘bonus’ cost-of-living payment
Rare $2 coin worth $3,000 found in spare change from servo: ‘Very uncommon’
What are the 10 best-paid careers straight after graduation?
Industry | Graduate Wage | Wage 3 Years After Graduation | Growth % |
Denistry | $90,000 | $108,300 | 20.3 |
Medicine | $75,100 | $101,000 | 34.5 |
Social Work | $70,400 | $85,000 | 20.7 |
Engineering | $70,000 | $100,000 | 42.9 |
Teaching | $70,000 | $83,000 | 18.6 |
Computer and IT | $66,700 | $96,400 | 44.5 |
Health Services and Support | $66,000 | $83,500 | 26.5 |
Law | $66,000 | $91,900 | 39.2 |
Nursing | $65,200 | $79,300 | 21.6 |
Science and Maths | $65,000 | $80,000 | 23.1 |
Let's unpack the data: So you have dentistry at the top because not only does it provide graduates with a healthy salary, but there's a strong rate of growth after a few years.
Conversely, while teaching starts out strong, it has the smallest growth in the top 10.
Engineering, law, and computer and science careers have some of the largest jumps in pay, with workers able to get up to $30,000 more just three years after finishing university.
But the biggest pay increase goes to people who picked pharmacy. A graduate wage is around $49,600. That jumps to $92,000 in just 36 months — an 85.5 per cent boost.
The data from Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching, which surveyed graduates in 2020 and followed up with them in 2023 to find out their salaries, is worrying for people who want to study communications.
The average graduate salary for a communications degree was around $56,000, and that jumped to $73,000 after three years.
While it certainly wasn't at the bottom of the list, it's a tough ride considering a three-year communications degree costs more than $50,000, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Get the latest Yahoo Finance news - follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
