In news that will either delight you or make you sigh heavily at a wall, the brains at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have unveiled the top 20 highest-paying occupations by median income. Yay!
The ATO released a bunch of data in July relating to the 2017-18 financial year. You can study all of it for yourselves, if you like. Right now, we’re just going to zero in on the top 20 occupations by median income. This is not to be confused with the average, though. The median is the middle value in a dataset.
Righto, so, the top three spots are dominated by medical occupations.
Shocker.
Anaesthetists hold the top spot with a median total income of $385,242.
(RIP Patrick Reid from Offspring, gone but never forgotten)
Coming in second on the podium are the surgeons of this country, who rake in a cool $320,186. Internal medicine specialists collect bronze with $268,247. Not quite sure what internal medicine specialists do, but the job sounds intense.
The first non-medical job on the list are mining engineers, who pocket $156,126.
Further down the list, in 10th place, are school principals. They rake in $124,275. Who knew!
And, just below them are your friendly neighbourhood doctors (general medical practitioners) on $122,350.
God, I really hope my mum isn’t reading this.
Train or tram drivers earn $118,333 and geologists or geophysicists come in 20th with $111,332.
Suss the full list below.
- Anaesthetist – $385,242
- Surgeon – $320,186
- Internal medicine specialist – $268,247
- Psychiatrist – $213,683
- Mining engineer – $156,126
- Financial dealer – $153,551
- Other medical practitioners – $149,548
- Engineering manager – $135,164
- Air transport professionals – $126,959
- School principal – $124,275
- General medical practitioner – $122,350
- Dental practitioner – $120,364
- Driller, miner or shot firer – $118,978
- IT manager – $118,674
- Train or tram driver – $118,333
- Economist – $114,290
- Chemical, gas, petroleum or power generation plant operator – $112,914
- Electrical engineer – $112,475
- Engineer, type not specified – $111,970
- Geologist or geophysicist – $111,332
I really am quite interested in “engineer, type not specified”, which the tax office must know sounds suss. The list on the ATO website also includes the amount of individuals in that profession during the 2017-18 financial year. And, according to the tax office, there were only 260 of the engineer-type-not-specified.
What exactly do these engineers do?
