Highest Paying Jobs in the UK Without a Degree (Part-1)

If you're currently looking for a high paying job and you don't have a university degree, then you should find this article helpful. I'm going to run through the highest paying jobs in the UK right now. Don't require you to have a university degree to apply for them. I'm also going to cover some common routes that you can take to apply for these jobs.

A lot of people think that in the UK you need to have a degree to get a good job and good money but that's not true. There are some jobs out there that don't require you to have a degree. Where you can be challenged, you can enjoy the work, and you can earn some really good money.

Air Traffic Controller:

The first job on the list is an air traffic controller. Now, air traffic controllers are those people that you might have seen on films who sue within the big air traffic control towers at airports. Their job is to essentially ensure that all of the flights going in and out of the airport are doing so safely and efficiently.

They do this by mapping out the landing paths for the pilots and communicating with them over the radio to ensure that all of the takeoffs and landings are running smoothly and safely. That’s why it's a very important job and there's a lot of responsibility for it.

On average, an air traffic controller will earn around 40,000 pounds a year, but an experienced senior air traffic control looking at around 100,000 pounds a year or more. So the starting salary for an air traffic controller is around 17,000 pounds a year plus expenses. This is while you're doing your college training which lasts for about a year to 18 months.

Once you've done that you'll then progress to on the job training where you're learning from somebody in a live environment. And during that period, you'll learn around 23,000 pounds a year. And once you've completed your operational training you'll then be given your license and this is when you'll start earning around 40,000 pounds a year or slightly more. And then after around three years, you can expect to see that rise to around 59,000 pounds a year.

Now to qualify for the application process. All you need is to be 18 years or older, and have five GCSEs at sea level. The best way to apply for this job is via the NATS website which is the National Air Traffic Services website. If you go to their website you can apply online, and from there you will be required to do several tests that will test your cognitive skills and your decision making. And once you pass the online test. You'll then be invited to a one-day Assessment Center where you'll go through further tests, and you'll do more group exercises. If you pass that stage. You'll then be invited to join as a trainee air traffic controller.

What I think is good about this application process is it's based on your skills and abilities and not on your experience. You don't need to have a CV that's back to the experience and lots of stuff you've done in the past. They're just looking at what you can do now, and their application process is more about tests and seeing how you perform in those than worrying about what you've done in the past, and they've also on their website. The NATS have got a series of minigames that you can play to train and test those skills to prepare yourself for the actual application process.

One thing that's worth bearing in mind with this job though is that as an air traffic controller, you will be expected to work anywhere in the UK. So once you've qualified for the station you have one of the air traffic control centers in any airport around the country. So, you will need to be fairly flexible on where you can live if you want to take up this career.

Recruitment consultant:

The second job on this list is a recruitment consultant. Recruitment consultants work for recruitment agencies and what agencies are there to do is to help other companies find staff. So they find stuff for companies they place them within that company and they charge the company fee. As a recruitment consultant, you will earn a commission from those fees so it's a sales job. The more placements you make within companies, the more money you earn.

A recruitment consultant job is a sales job, and what it involves is going to the clients and bringing in vacancies so approaching potential clients. Once you bring those vacancies in you then go out to the job market you advertise you speak to candidates you screen candidates interview them, and then you manage the process through to their interview and then the job offer stage. So when you place a candidate, with an employer a fee will be generated by your company, and when that fee is paid by the client company. You as a recruitment consultant will get a commission of that fee.

A good recruitment consultant can expect to earn around 30000 to 40,000 pounds a year. By really good recruitment consultant in the right sort of high paying industries can earn well more than 100,000 pounds a year. But it's worth pointing out that it is a sales job, and you're not guaranteed this money, it's only if you're making constant placements, and you're generating money for your employer.

Generally speaking recruitment consultants or junior recruitment consultants trainees will start on a basic salary of around 15,000 to 16,000 pounds a year. But then you are eligible to earn commission on top of that from the moment you start working. So the more sales you're making, the more placements you're making, the more commission you'll generate. In the early days, a junior recruitment consultant can easily look to be making sort of 40,000 pounds a year. But there is no cap on the earning so you know if you get into recruitment and you take well and you make last placements, then you know the sky is the limit. Plus, a lot of companies do offer bonuses paid holidays cards, think of that as well. Generally speaking, there are no formal qualifications for a recruitment consultant, they tend to hire more on personality traits than they do on qualifications.

If you wanted to go away today and look for a junior recruitment job. What I would recommend is looking for either a trainee recruitment consultant position or looking for a resource a position. So in summary, it's a really good job, if you are driven and motivated and you're good with people. You could you can certainly own lots of money, but it's worth pointing is a very tough sales job, it's not easy. You know there are targets to hit, and you know that the money isn't guaranteed. And if you're not hitting those targets, you're not going to be making those big figures.

Mortgage Advisor:

Now the third job on this list is a mortgage advisor. So, if you don't know what a mortgage advisor does, essentially, when people need to buy a home in the UK, they will generally be speaking needs to borrow money from the bank or they'll need a loan which is called a mortgage. A mortgage is a loan that is secured on the house or flat that you're buying. So what a mortgage advisor does is they help house buyers to pick the right mortgage products for their needs.

Mortgages are very complex financial products and there are lots of deals out there so they help people to pick the right one. As a mortgage advisor, you will either work directly for a bank and advise only on that bank’s products or you might work for an independent mortgage brokerage who advises on a wide range of products from across the market. When a mortgage is arranged a fee will generally be generated and mortgage advisers make a commission on those fees. It is technically a sales job.

On average, a good mortgage advisor can expect to earn around 45,000 pounds a year. But then again, a good mortgage advisor who is arranging lots of mortgages can earn more than 80,000 pounds a year but you do have to be arranging those mortgages and making those sales to earn the commission to earn that kind of money. The averages starting salary for mortgage advisors will be around 20k to 25K, but within the first year, as you progress and start to bring on more clients and sell more mortgage deals, you can easily start to move that to the sort of 30,000 to 40,000 pounds a year range.

The main qualification you need to become a mortgage advisor in the UK is a CeMAP or a certificate of mortgage advice and practice. He costs a few hundred pounds to do this course and you can self-study at home, but you have to take an exam at the end and only if you pass the exam, are you then qualified to give mortgage advice in the UK.

So, there are a couple of routes that you can take to become a mortgage advisor in the UK. The first is that you self study on your own, so you buy the CeMAP study material. You take about six months to a year to do the studies you pass the exam. Once you pass the exam you then apply for junior mortgage device positions or trainee positions with banks or lenders. The second way you can take though is that you can take a more junior job with a bank for example, such as a customer advisor someone who deals with savings and loans and things like that. And then you can progress your way into a mortgage role so you can you know start to let your boss know that you're looking to move into mortgages and in many cases, a lot of employers will fund those studies for you. So once you've qualified You will then be able to move into a mortgage role internally with the employer. And generally speaking, to get one of these Junior banking type jobs you'll only need sort of basic GCSEs to get your foot in the door there.

So it's a really good job if you're interested in finance and you'd like dealing with people, but it's important to remember it is a sales job so again it does come with pressure and targets and you're not guaranteed to make those commissions unless you're making those mortgage deals.