A lot of highly qualified, skilled, and experienced teachers often give up their profession and look for a career change.
In such cases, they might find it hard to find a suitable job, where their skills would matter more than their experience as a teacher.
Usually, Ex teachers hit this roadblock because they don’t really know which jobs are suitable for their educational qualifications and skills.
If you’re one such a former teacher or planning to leave the profession for a career change, I’m confident that this small guide would help a lot. Because, in this article, I will talk about the top 30 highest paying jobs for former teachers.
Additionally, I will also be writing about the various skills you’d possess as a former or present teacher and yet not know.
Therefore, I suggest that you read this article till the end because it would show how you can leverage your skills as a teacher and get a superb, highest paying job that you like.
Skills That Teachers Have
If you’re a former teacher or working as one, it’s most likely that you have all or at least most of these skills. And surely, as a teacher, you would hold at least a Bachelor’s degree in any subject. The degree is necessary because that defines the nature of your job.
Here’re some of the skills you would usually have as a teacher.
- Patience
- Emotional Intelligence
- Sense of Understanding
- Good level of kindness
- Keen eye for detail
- Wish to see others succeed
- Excellent communications skills
- Ability to convince others
- Open to questions
- Good knowledge about various subjects
- A good command over math
- Personal and interpersonal etiquette
Other than these, there would definitely be some more life skills that you possess. Furthermore, you would also have a fairly large social circle that consists of friends as well as parents of your ex-students.
Actually, all these are wonderful assets that you could use skillfully to start a new career of your choice. In fact, these are some of the qualities that employers look for while hiring a new employee for some critical positions.
Top 30 Highest Paying Jobs for Former Teachers
Since you’re now aware of some or all your skills as well as the significance of your college and university degree, here’re 30 best paying jobs that you could consider.
Understandably, you might require a short online or offline course or certifications to work on some of these jobs if you’re looking for a complete career change as a former teacher.
1. Financial Adviser
Financial Adviser is one of the best jobs for Former teachers who quit and don’t want to teach anymore.
Superb communication skills and the wish to see others succeed are some of the qualities that every financial advisor needs to have.
That’s because they’re dealing with the hard-earned money of others. People will trust you and invest in plans that you suggest only if you can help them grow the money.
2. Online Tutor
Thousands of teachers give up their profession every year to join the ever-growing number of online tutors. Actually, online tutoring is also a teaching job. This is an alternative job for retired teachers
The only difference is that you would be teaching from home instead of attending a school for your work as a teacher. Many online tutors are also millionaires now due to their popularity.
Also Read: 23 Best Websites for Online Tutoring Jobs (Earn $50/Hour)
3. Online Advice Columnist
Usually, teachers have superb Emotional Intelligence or EI. This means they can understand the emotions that a person is feeling at any point of time and respond with care.
Online Advice Columnists work for newspapers, magazines, radio and TV channels. They provide advice to people facing different situations in life, which are usually stressful.
4. Event Organizer
Organizing events requires lots of people-management and crowd-management skills that most teachers usually have, due to their experience with students.
Therefore, an event organizer is one of the careers you could consider. This job also requires an eye for detail and excellent planning skills as well as etiquette.
5. Proof Reader
Online and offline proof readers earn a lot of money. As a former teacher, this profession is worth trying since it doesn’t involve much stress and you could work on flexible hours.
You have to check documents and books for spelling errors, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, as well as typos, and correct them.
Also Read: 10 Best Online Proofreading Jobs from Home That Pay $25 Per Hour
6. Editor
You can edit an online magazine or blog as an editor. This job also requires excellent people-management skills because writers always want their works to go into print.
You will possess the skills to judge a well-written article and its contents, as well as understand the relevance to your readers.
7. Content Writer
A content writer’s job isn’t really easy, as many people will falsely believe. Instead, it requires excellent writing skills and the patience to do lots of research into a subject to be able to write comprehensive content.
This isn’t exactly a low-stress job. However, this is a high-demand skill and profession, by any standards.
Also Read:10 Useful Tips to Become a Content Creator
8. Subeditor
A subeditor is someone that checks the final copy of a news article before it goes for print or broadcast. Their job is to ensure that all facts are included in the copy and there’re no unanswered questions.
This is a good job that pays very well. Most news media outlets always require good subeditors who can check final copies before clearing for publication.
9. Babysitter
As a teacher, you would surely have the skills to care for children. Use these skills to become a fulltime or part-time babysitter.
Normally, you could find jobs with countless agencies that provide babysitters to parents. You get paid on an hourly basis, per child that you sit. Often, households have more than two kids.
10. Bookkeeper
Bookkeepers are accountants that often work from home and online. This is an excellent job for teachers good at math. That’s because you’ll be keeping accounts of incoming and outgoing cash.
This is a very responsible position since it usually involves large sums of money. You can find jobs with high-net worth individuals or also small, medium businesses.
11. Graphic Designer
If you’re an art teacher and would love to change careers, try the job of a graphic designer. Usually, there’re art colleges from where graphic designers graduate.
However, nowadays, it’s possible for anyone to become a graphic designer by doing a short online course for a few months only. You can work fulltime or part-time, with one employer or freelance.
12. Medical Secretary
When we visit a physician or a consultant, the first person to greet us and take our details is a medical secretary.
They take our details, find our files, and further them to the medical expert as we await our appointment. This job needs meticulous filing and other skills that teachers learn during their work.
13. Lab Technician
This is yet another prize job for former teachers that offer high pay. A lab technician works at labs at clinics or even at companies. Their job is to test all sorts of samples, regardless of whether they’re medical specimens or chemicals used for production.
A lab technician’s job is very prestigious too, and you can get one if you have a science background or degree.
14. Sales Supervisor
Sales supervisors are in charge of an entire team of field agents who reach out to stores and individuals.
Your job is to oversee these sales and the team, suggest and implement overall sales improvement programs and ensure that the company’s image is maintained in the market.
This job suits all teachers since they have superb supervisory and guidance skills.
15. Quality Control Assistants
Teachers holding a degree in chemistry and science can easily find jobs as quality control assistants at companies that make products for the public.
This job involves testing various batches of products when they’re produced and checking if they meet the quality standards. If not, it’s your job to inform your seniors and prevent them from reaching the market.
16. Housekeeper
Teachers can easily find housekeeping jobs at some of the top, star-rated hotels in USA and elsewhere.
That’s again because teachers have a good eye for detail and are always striving for their students and schools to be neat and tidy.
These qualities are also important for excellent housekeeping at posh hotels and clubs, among other places.
17. Human Resources Managers
Whether or not you know it, teachers are actually excellent human resources managers. They know the strengths and weaknesses of every student and respond accordingly to their needs.
The same skill comes into play while managing human resources. You will be managing a large pool of talent at the organization and trying to ensure everyone is happy.
18. Blog Moderator
All blogs get hundreds or even thousands of comments from followers and readers. But sometimes, trolls and troublemakers also post comments for no apparent reasons.
These comments, if seen, can be offensive. Therefore, it’s the work of a blog moderator to weed out such comments and respond to good ones only so that the blog traffic increases.
19. Storekeeper
Teachers are very good at maintaining inventories of books and other teaching materials. They know how to channelize them and make the best use of their resources.
These skills prove vital for storekeeping. Because, you have to maintain proper inventory or stock of things and ensure that all resources are accounted without any wastage.
20. Medical Adviser
Medical advisers are people that serve as the first point of contact between a hospital or clinic and the patient. Their job is to counsel the patient on the various therapies available and calculate the overall costs.
A medical adviser also follows-up on patients after the medical treatment is over, to ensure they have no problems caused by the therapies.
21. Surgery Assistant
If you can withstand the sight of blood and internal human organs, working as a surgical assistant for a hospital could be an option.
That’s because surgery assistants aren’t surgeons. Instead, they attend surgeries to assist surgeons and nurses in their jobs quickly and efficiently.
22. PSO
The job of a Phone Sex Operator is something that can fetch female teachers a lot of money. It doesn’t involve meeting the client personally or even disclosing your real name or other details.
Instead, it involves only giving some steamy talk in a kind and understanding voice to the client on the other end of the phone. There’re several agencies that hire PSOs.
23. Higher Education Counsellors
Parents and their children are often unsure of courses and careers to follow once they graduate from school. Here’s where the role of a higher education counsellor becomes very important.
As a former teacher, you can easily assess the capabilities and likes of a student and counsel them about the course and career they could follow.
24. Cartographer
The job of a cartographer is ideal for teachers who have skills and excellent knowledge of geography.
Basically, cartographers are people that visit places and make maps by identifying landmarks and other topographical features of an area.
This is a very high-paying job, if geography is your main area and have qualifications in this subject.
25. Cabin Crew
Female and male teachers that leave the profession while young can look for jobs as flight stewardess or flight steward. That’s because etiquette, understanding, care, and other qualities of a teacher are very essential for this job.
A lot of airlines don’t have an upper age limit for people to join them as cabin crew. You could look for any airline that hires people your age.
26. Traffic Warden
A traffic warden is a woman or man that controls traffic, while allowing kids, women, and seniors to cross the road safely. They also ensure a smooth flow of pedestrians on busy streets and roads.
This job requires people that’re sensitive to the needs of kids, women, specially-abled and seniors, like teachers. Therefore, consider joining this job, if possible.
27. Librarian
Teachers usually have excellent knowledge of books. They’re also adept at keeping records, such as those of students and their attendance.
This automatically qualifies you to work as a librarian, if you hold a teaching degree from any college or university. This is a fairly relaxed job and doesn’t require you to exert extra effort.
28. Shipping Clerk
Again, the eye for detail, record-keeping, organizational skills and lots more come into play for this role as a shipping clerk. Usually, shipping clerks work for logistics and transport companies.
They keep track of incoming and outbound cargo and make Bills of Lading or consignor clearance reports for shipping and taking deliveries, where needed.
29. Guest Relations Manager
Clubs, hotels and even some restaurants, malls and large stores, among others, hire guest relations managers. That’s because they want to make every guest feel special by meeting any unique needs.
Guest relations managers also attend to complaints and ensure the smooth functioning of the premises. They follow-up with guests on their experiences.
30. Fleet Despatcher
Fleet Despatchers are in charge of a large fleet or freight trucks or passenger buses, taxis and other vehicles. Their job is to ensure that each vehicle is utilized well and available when needed.
They maintain records such as positions of each vehicle and their movements while despatching them to clients where necessary.
In Conclusion
Most teachers in USA hold at least a Bachelor’s degree in teaching or other streams. This automatically qualifies you for lots of jobs.
However, you can leverage your skills from your teaching experience and get superb, high paying jobs in all sorts of organizations, as the above list clearly proves.