The 10 jobs with the largest share of workers who earn $100,000 or more—without a bachelor's degree

In general, workers with bachelor’s degrees tend to earn more than their peers with less education.

Workers with a bachelor’s degree earn a median income of around $80,000 a year, compared with $47,000 a year among workers with just a high school diploma, according to New York Fed data. Just 9% of workers without a bachelor’s degree earned at least $100,000 in 2023, according to a recent LendingTree analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

But in some occupations, a significant share of workers without bachelor’s degrees hit that earnings milestone, including 47.5% of elevator installers and repairers without a degree, according to LendingTree. Elevator technicians without bachelor’s degrees earn a median income of $100,290, per LendingTree’s analysis.

LendingTree examined data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey to determine which occupations have the highest shares of workers earning six figures without bachelor’s degrees. Along with elevator technicians, other technical and engineering-related occupations have large shares of well-paid workers who didn’t earn four-year degrees.

Here are the 10 occupations with the highest shares of workers without bachelor’s degrees earning six figures and the median incomes among workers in each occupation without bachelor’s degrees, according to LendingTree.