10 Industries Where Your Salary Could Double in 5 Years

While there's always uncertainty and upheaval in the job market, there are plenty of industries that are expected to grow rapidly over the next five years. These roles offer excellent pay and the opportunity to significantly increase your salary. Increasing your earning potential is the best way to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

Here are 10 professions where you can potentially double your salary in five years.

As the world continues to move online, organizations require increasingly robust protection from hackers and other digital threats.

A cybersecurity analyst earns a median salary of $124,910, with the 90th percentile earning $186,420. That means you can significantly increase your pay from where you start, so doubling in five years isn't unreasonable.

As more services migrate to the digital cloud, programmers and architects are in higher demand.

With a median pay of around $130,390 and the top 10% earning $198,030, moving from entry-level to a senior role over five years could easily double your salary. And the industry is expected to grow by 12% over the next decade, so there's no shortage of jobs.

With a serious nursing shortage and an aging population, jobs in the health care field are plentiful and offer competitive pay.

The median pay for a registered nurse is $93,600, while the top 10% earned more than $135,320 in 2024. So, it's entirely possible to come close to doubling your salary once you start nursing.

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Big data is booming now as tech companies seek data scientists and machine learning engineers to interface with artificial intelligence programs, developing insights into specific outcomes.

Data scientists in particular are expected to grow by 34%. The median pay for a data scientist is $112,590, with the 90th percentile earning $194,410. It's not unlikely for you to start off at the lower end, earning under six figures, and then move up the pay scale by year five.

Software as a service (SaaS) remains a massive market, with a significant demand for sales professionals. This also applies to enterprise software. There's a wide compensation range here because a significant portion of it is commission-based.

The data shows that high-level sales engineers make well over $202,670, while the bottom 10% earn less than $70,580. So, if you're able to get the hang of software sales, you can easily rocket up the earnings ladder in just a few years.

While the pay is initially relatively low as you complete your apprenticeship, your earnings potential can skyrocket later on as a skilled tradesperson. This is particularly true for an electrician, as many tech companies are investing in building large (and electricity-intensive) data centers.

The bottom 10 percent of electricians make less than $39,430, while the top 10 percent make $106,030, so it's quite possible to make substantially more once you become licensed or open your own business.

Despite what might be reported in the media, a housing/building shortage still persists in the U.S., and there's a need for people to manage both current and new properties once they're built.

A lot of the disparity in national pay is due to location, so keep in mind that you'll make significantly more if you're managing properties in San Francisco instead of Des Moines. The median pay for a property manager is $66,700, while the 90th percentile earns more than $141,040 annually, so doubling your salary is a possibility in a few short years.

Biotechnology is booming, and so are bioengineers and other health care tech workers, so it's possible to get into the industry and then see your pay rise rapidly.

The bottom 10% of bioengineers earned less than $71,860, while the top 10 percent earned more than $165,060. That is a great indicator of growth potential in this career.

Wall Street is doling out massive bonuses to quant researchers and developers. While the industry is inherently chaotic, during boom times, you can rapidly increase your pay scale.

Starting out as an associate quant developer can get you a base pay of $150,000, but you can bring that number up as you gain more experience and move into a quant researcher role, where you can make $325,000 or more with bonuses.

As the world becomes more globally connected, logicians and supply chain professionals will see a growth in lucrative job opportunities.

Median salaries for supply chain professionals reached $103,000, and salaries for VP and general manager reached $190,000. Securing an entry-level role allows for advancement as the industry continues to grow.

While doubling your salary in five years isn't guaranteed, many of these high-growth fields give ambitious professionals the leverage to make it possible, especially through promotions, specialization, or strategic job changes.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations in computer and mathematical fields (which include cybersecurity, cloud, data science, etc.) are projected to grow 12.9% over the next eight years, more than three times the average growth rate for all occupations (4.0%). Not to mention, health care support is expected to grow by 15.2%.

That means demand and competition will continue to drive salaries upward, which is a good thing if you want to build wealth.