What does the job actually pay?

Real hourly and yearly pay for 85 hands-on roles — warehouse, trades, driving, care and food service. From live job postings near you and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Roles tracked
85
With pay data
63
Open jobs
942
BLS data
2025

Highest paying

Best-paid roles here — none of them need a college degree.

Start with no experience

Hire and train on the job — no licence, no prior experience, no degree.

Worth getting licensed for

A certificate or licence — weeks to a few years, often employer-funded — rather than a degree.

Pay guides

Jobs that pay well without a degree Every role here that clears $40,000 with no college required, by state. Browse jobs by city Open positions in every US city we cover, grouped by state. Get ready to apply Free resume checker, cover letter writer and application checklist.

Browse by industry

Skilled Trades 44

Healthcare 15

Retail & Customer Service 17

Business & Finance 7

Education 2

Where the work is

Which parts of the country have the most of a given job, relative to everywhere else — useful if you're willing to move for the right work.

Pay by state

Common questions about pay

What are the highest paying jobs that don't need a degree?

Of the 85 roles tracked here, the best paid are Dental Hygienist, Registered Nurse, Construction Supervisor, Production Supervisor, Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). Dental Hygienist tops the list at a median of $114,400 a year ($55.00 an hour). Most of these need a licence or an apprenticeship rather than a college degree — weeks or a few years of paid training rather than tuition debt.

Which jobs can I start with no experience?

Plenty — warehouse, packing, food prep, retail, cleaning, delivery and care work all routinely hire people with no prior experience and train on the job. Of those, Carpenter pays best at a median of $60,580 a year. Several are also the standard route into better-paid trades: warehouse work into forklift operation, dish pit into the kitchen line, labouring into an apprenticeship.

Where does this pay data come from?

Two sources, and every figure says which one it used. Live job postings on LocalWork show what employers are advertising right now — fresher and local, but only where enough listings state pay. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme provides the baseline for everything else. We never blend them: a job-ad median and a workforce-earnings median measure genuinely different things.

Is the pay shown hourly or yearly?

Both. Each role is shown in whichever unit it is normally quoted in — hourly for warehouse, trades and food service, yearly for salaried roles — and every page has a toggle to switch. Annual figures assume 2,080 hours a year, which is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. If you work fewer hours, or the role is seasonal or term-time, scale the annual figure down accordingly.

Why is the pay range so wide for some jobs?

Because the spread within a job is usually larger than the difference between cities. Experience, certifications, shift premiums, overtime and employer size all move pay significantly. That is why every role page shows the 10th to 90th percentile rather than only an average — the average hides exactly the information you need to judge whether an offer is fair.

All roles A–Z

17 of 85 roles currently have enough recent postings to show advertised pay; the rest use Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, and every page states which it used. All figures are estimates for guidance only, not an offer or guarantee. Actual pay depends on experience, certifications, shift and employer.