- Financial Risk Specialists Top Ranking of Overlooked US$100,000 Careers
Financial risk specialists have emerged as America’s most overlooked six-figure professionals, according to new research suggesting that some of the country’s well-paid careers attract remarkably little attention from jobseekers.
The study by digital marketing company Click Intelligence ranked financial risk specialists first among 10 relatively unnoticed occupations paying average annual salaries of more than US$100,000.
Only 310 Google searches are made for the job title each month, the research found, despite an annual mean salary of US$124,420, employment of almost 64,000 people and projected growth of 9 per cent between 2025 and 2035.
The occupation is expected to produce about 5,200 openings annually over the period.
Financial risk specialists assess threats to the financial health of banks, insurers, investment firms and other organisations. Their work may involve measuring market, credit and operational risks, developing risk-management models and advising institutions on how to limit potential losses.
Official US Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirm that 63,850 financial risk specialists were employed in May 2025 and earned an annual mean wage of US$124,420. The occupation’s median salary — the point at which half of workers earned more and half earned less was US$117,330.
The distinction is important. A mean salary can be lifted by a smaller number of highly paid workers and does not necessarily represent the earnings of a new entrant. Even so, both measures place the profession comfortably above the US median wage.
The findings expose a mismatch between what receives public attention and where attractive employment opportunities may exist.
“When people think about six-figure careers, they often go straight to the most visible professions such as doctors, lawyers, or software engineers,” said James Owen, co-founder and director of Click Intelligence.
“Those careers get talked about so much that they have become the default choice for ambitious people, which is also why they are so competitive.”
First-line supervisors of police and detectives placed second in the ranking, with average annual earnings of US$112,200 and only 400 searches for the job each month.
More than 154,000 people are employed in the occupation, while an estimated 12,800 openings are expected each year through 2035 — the highest number among the 10 careers examined.
The figure does not mean that nearly 13,000 entirely new supervisory positions will be created annually. Employment-opening projections generally include vacancies arising when workers retire, transfer into other occupations or otherwise leave their roles.
The job may also be less accessible than its search volume suggests. Police supervisors are normally promoted from within law-enforcement institutions after acquiring substantial operational experience. It is therefore not a conventional entry-level career that an external applicant can pursue solely because demand appears strong.
Postsecondary social sciences teachers ranked third. The occupation employs about 118,400 people and pays an annual mean salary of US$101,100, according to the study.
It is projected to grow by 5 per cent between 2025 and 2035, creating an estimated 8,400 openings annually, yet attracts only 490 Google searches a month.
The finding challenges the common perception that teaching careers necessarily offer modest remuneration. But it also requires context: many permanent university teaching positions demand postgraduate qualifications, published research and years of academic experience.
Training and development managers placed fourth and recorded the highest average salary among the top five, at US$148,400 a year.
These managers design and oversee workplace learning programmes, assess employees’ skills and ensure that training supports an organisation’s strategy. About 4,100 openings are projected annually, while employment is forecast to grow by roughly 6 per cent through 2035.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the occupation’s median annual wage at US$133,000 and says candidates typically require a bachelor’s or master’s degree alongside related professional experience.
Yet only 540 monthly searches were recorded for the role, according to Click Intelligence.
Fundraising managers completed the top five, with average annual earnings of about US$140,000. Nearly 39,000 people work in the profession, which spans charities, universities, hospitals and other institutions dependent on donor funding.
The occupation is projected to grow by 6 per cent, with approximately 3,500 openings each year, but records only about 1,110 monthly searches.
Meteorologists, power distributors and dispatchers, ship engineers, financial examiners and geoscientists filled the remaining positions in the top 10.
Their average salaries ranged from US$106,100 to US$116,200, while monthly searches for each occupation remained below 1,300.
Click Intelligence combined labour-market information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with Google search volumes for each job title to identify occupations offering high salaries, sizeable employment or hiring prospects but receiving comparatively little online interest.
The approach offers a useful measure of career visibility, but it should not be interpreted as a direct count of applicants.
People may search using variations of a job title, explore vacancies through professional networks or encounter career opportunities through internal promotion. Conversely, someone searching for a profession may be researching it rather than intending to apply.
Low search interest, therefore, does not automatically mean low competition. Some of the listed occupations have substantial barriers to entry, including specialist degrees, professional experience, licensing requirements or progression through an established institutional hierarchy.
Power distributors and dispatchers illustrate another complication. The profession pays an annual mean salary of US$111,300 and is estimated to generate about 3,400 openings a year, but total employment is projected to contract by 4 per cent.
The openings may largely reflect the replacement of existing workers rather than expansion of the occupation.
Still, the study identifies an important weakness in how career choices are often made. Visibility can become self-reinforcing: students hear repeatedly about a narrow range of professions, educational institutions build programmes around them and applicants crowd into familiar career pipelines.
Owen said applications to some established professions continued to rise even though equally lucrative alternatives received much less attention.
“The more familiar a career is, the more people chase it,” he said.
“But there are plenty of other jobs that pay just as well and barely anyone is going after them, simply because most people have never heard of them.”
For jobseekers, the ranking’s strongest lesson is not that any low-search occupation offers an easy route to a six-figure income. It is that career research should begin with the structure of the labour market rather than the visibility of a job title.
Salary, qualifications, projected demand, replacement openings and the cost of acquiring the required skills all matter more than whether a profession is widely discussed.
“And for anyone who does look into them, that is actually good news,” Owen said, “since fewer people knowing about a role means fewer people competing for it.”
The research was conducted by Click Intelligence using US Bureau of Labor Statistics data and monthly Google search volumes.
