High-Paying Jobs Nobody Applies To: 5 Fact-Checked

8 min read · Last updated: October 24, 2026

The high-paying jobs nobody's applying to, according to a widely shared Medium list, are court reporter, 911 dispatcher, crop duster pilot, merchant mariner, and teaching your job online. Checked against US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the shortages are real, but the six-figure pay figures come from expensive cities, overtime and bonuses, not from typical base salaries.

Came here from Instagram, LinkedIn, X or YouTube? Here is the full source list you came for. Everything below is built from these, nothing else.

The article this started from

• Top 5 High-Paying Jobs Nobody's Applying To, Medium (accessed October 24, 2026)

The national data (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 pay, 2025 to 2035 projections)

• Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
• Public Safety Telecommunicators (911 dispatchers)
• Airline and Commercial Pilots
• Water Transportation Workers
• Software Developers

The employer receipts

• San Francisco Public Safety Communications Dispatcher listing, City and County Sheriff of San Francisco
• Military Sealift Command pay table, Maritime Reporter, September 2023
• Ag aviators say they need more pilots, Spectrum News, August 2022

The platform rules

• YouTube Partner Program eligibility, YouTube Help

A list like this does well for a reason. If you are a developer sending your fiftieth application into a pile of hundreds, a job where employers beg you to show up sounds like an escape hatch.

So I did the boring thing. I took every claim in the article and checked it against the US government's own numbers and the employers' own postings. Some of it holds up. Some of it falls apart the moment you read the footnote.

Key takeaways

• The national median pay for these roles runs from $53,040 (911 dispatchers) to $123,220 (commercial pilots), per BLS May 2025 data. None are six figures at the median except pilots.
• A San Francisco dispatcher listing does pay $113,516 to $144,872, with only a high school diploma and two years of public-facing work required.
• Military Sealift Command's $98,778 Able Seaman average includes overtime. The base pay in the same table is $46,346.
• Court reporting is a shrinking-pool job: 0% projected growth but about 1,800 openings a year, mostly from retirements.
• For comparison, software developers earn a median $135,980 with 10% projected growth, per BLS.
• The fifth "job", teaching your work online, has a hard gate: 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours before YouTube pays you anything.

What are the high-paying jobs nobody's applying to?

The Medium article names five: court reporter, 911 dispatcher, crop duster pilot, merchant mariner, and creating videos about your own job. The first four are real US labor shortages that employers struggle to fill. The fifth is not a job at all; it is a side income that only pays once you reach a platform threshold.

The article cites no sources for its numbers. Its only attributions are image captions. That does not make the numbers wrong. It means you should not quit anything based on them.

Here is every role, side by side, with the article's claim next to what I could actually verify.

Role	Medium's pay claim	BLS national median (May 2025)	Openings per year	Projected growth 2025 to 2035	Entry requirement (BLS)
Court reporter	$125K to $149K in LA and SF, plus signing bonus	$72,420	about 1,800	0%	Postsecondary certificate, often 2 to 3 years
911 dispatcher	$115K to $147K in San Francisco	$53,040	about 9,000	4%	High school diploma
Crop duster pilot	$150K to $250K for experienced pilots	$123,220 (all commercial pilots)	about 16,400 (all airline and commercial pilots)	5% (commercial pilots)	Commercial pilot license
Merchant mariner	$119K average for able seamen	$71,860 (all water transportation workers)	about 8,600	4%	TWIC card plus Coast Guard credential
Software developer (for comparison)	not in the article	$135,980	106,100 (shared with QA and testers)	10%	Usually a bachelor's degree

Read the middle column again. The gap between "what people say" and "what the median worker earns" is the whole story.

Do court reporters really earn six figures?

Some do, in specific courts. The typical one does not. BLS puts the US median at $72,420 a year as of May 2025, across about 19,900 jobs. The article's $125,000 to $149,000 figures for Los Angeles and San Francisco, and its $50,000 signing bonus, are city-specific claims I could not confirm on the courts' own sites.

What does hold up is the shortage logic. BLS projects 0% growth, yet still expects about 1,800 openings a year. Almost all of those come from people retiring or leaving.

That is the pattern you want to notice. A field with zero growth can still hire constantly if the existing workers are aging out faster than schools produce new ones.

The catch is the training. BLS says most entrants finish a certificate or associate program that typically takes 2 to 3 years, and many states require a license or certification. That is not a quick pivot.

How much do 911 dispatchers make?

The US median for 911 dispatchers is $53,040 a year, per BLS May 2025 data. In San Francisco, a current City and County Sheriff listing pays $113,516 to $144,872, with a high school diploma and two years in a public-contact job as the minimum. This is the one claim in the article that the employer's own listing backs up.

The requirements really are low. BLS lists a high school diploma as the entry education. The San Francisco listing asks for two years in a role "providing information and/or a service", and lets 30 semester units of college replace one of those years.

So why is nobody applying? Partly because the national median is $53,040, not $144,872. San Francisco pays what San Francisco costs. Partly because the work is shift-heavy and stressful, and BLS notes many states add certification, an exam, a typing test and a background check.

BLS counts about 105,600 dispatcher jobs and about 9,000 openings a year. That is a lot of chairs to fill.

Are crop duster pilots paid $150K to $250K?

I could not verify that range. BLS does not break out agricultural pilots, but the median for all commercial pilots, the category crop dusting falls under, was $123,220 in May 2025. The shortage itself is well documented by the industry's own trade association.

In 2022, Jim Perrin, then president of the National Agricultural Aviation Association, told Spectrum News that demand for ag pilots outpaces supply, with some operators' airplanes sitting empty for lack of qualified pilots.

BLS is blunt about the job. Aerial applicators handle pesticides, may be exposed to toxic chemicals, land on grass, dirt or gravel strips, and face the risk of hitting power lines. The pay is high because the barrier to entry is a commercial pilot license and real physical risk, not because nobody noticed it.

How much do merchant mariners actually make?

It depends on whether you count overtime. In a September 2023 recruiting table, Military Sealift Command, the US Navy's civilian-crewed supply fleet, listed an Able Seaman at $46,346 base pay, a $23,173 bonus, and a $98,778 average annual salary. The footnote says that average includes base, overtime and other special pay.

That footnote is the most useful sentence in this whole article. Roughly half of the headline number is overtime and special pay. You get it by working long days for months at sea.

The same table shows where the real money is. A First Assistant Engineer averaged $223,537 and a First Officer $222,921. Those are senior licensed roles that take years of sea time to reach, which BLS confirms: advancement "generally requires years of sea time".

To start, BLS says most jobs need a TSA Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and a Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Credential, plus hearing and vision tests. Deep-sea crews may be away for weeks or months, often working 7 days a week.

Should developers switch to one of these jobs?

For most developers, no. Software developers already earn a median $135,980, higher than every role on this list at the national median, and BLS projects 10% growth from 2025 to 2035. The lesson from this list is not to switch fields. It is to find the unglamorous corner of your own field where supply is short.

Every job on the list shares three traits:

1. A boring or uncomfortable surface. Courtrooms, night shifts, pesticides, months at sea.
2. A real gate. A license, a credential, or a multi-year training program.
3. An aging workforce. Openings come from retirements, not growth.

Software has the same corners. Legacy systems nobody wants to touch. Compliance-heavy domains. Infrastructure that has to stay up at 3am. If the AI shift has you worried about which coding skills last, I went through that in the coding skills that survive AI in 2026.

How do you find a low-competition, high-paying role? A step-by-step plan

You find one by looking for roles where openings come from retirements, where a credential filters out casual applicants, and where the work is unglamorous. Then you verify pay against the national median and the employer's own posting, not against a viral list. These six steps take about a week.

1. Start with the national median. Look up the role on the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, or your country's equivalent labor statistics office. Write down the median, not the top figure.
2. Check openings against growth. A role with low growth but high openings, like court reporting at 0% growth and 1,800 openings a year, is a retirement-driven shortage. Those tend to last.
3. Find the employer's own posting. Search the actual employer's careers site. Note the base salary separately from overtime, bonuses and allowances.
4. Read every footnote. The Military Sealift Command average roughly doubles the base pay once overtime is included. Ask what the number assumes.
5. Price the gate. Count the months and money to get the license or credential. Two to three years of court reporting school is a different bet than an eight-week academy.
6. Talk to one person doing it. Ask about shifts, burnout and the first year's real take-home. No dataset tells you that.

If you are trying to decide whether to stay in software at all, read whether quitting coding makes sense in 2026 before you spend two years retraining.

Can you monetise your skills online instead?

Yes, but not quickly. The Medium article's fifth option, making videos about your daily work, is real income for some people, but it gives no numbers. YouTube's own rules say you need 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 watch hours in 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days before you can apply.

Even then, YouTube says meeting the threshold does not guarantee acceptance; the channel still goes through a review. Shorts views in the Shorts feed do not count toward the 4,000 hours.

For a developer, this is the most realistic item on the list, because you can do it without leaving your job. Explaining what you do every day is content most people in your field cannot produce. The trick is treating it as a slow side bet, not a salary. If you want to learn faster while you document it, here is how to use AI to learn programming 3x faster.

Mistakes to avoid

• Quoting the city number as the job's pay. San Francisco's $144,872 ceiling for dispatchers sits next to a national median of $53,040.
• Counting overtime as salary. A $98,778 average built on a $46,346 base means you work for the other half.
• Ignoring the gate. Low competition usually exists because of a license, a credential or real risk. That is the price of the pay.
• Trusting unsourced lists. The original article cites nothing. I could not verify its crop duster range, its court reporter bonuses, or its $119,000 mariner figure.
• Assuming US numbers travel. Every figure here is American. Check your own country's labor data before you plan around any of it.
• Quitting for a side income. YouTube pays nothing until you clear its threshold, and then only after review.

FAQ

What job pays well with almost no competition?

In the US, 911 dispatching in high-cost cities is the clearest example. A San Francisco listing pays $113,516 to $144,872 and asks only for a high school diploma and two years of public-facing work. Nationally, though, the median is $53,040, per BLS May 2025 data.

Is court reporting a dying career?

Not dying, but not growing. BLS projects 0% growth from 2025 to 2035, yet about 1,800 openings a year because workers retire or leave. Training typically takes 2 to 3 years, and many states require a license.

How long does it take to become a merchant mariner?

Entry-level sailors need no formal education and typically get 1 month to 1 year of on-the-job training, per BLS. You first need a TWIC card and a Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Credential. The highest-paid roles require years of sea time.

Do developers earn more than these jobs?

At the national median, yes. BLS puts software developers at $135,980 in May 2025, above every role on this list, including commercial pilots at $123,220. The listed jobs only pass that in specific cities or with heavy overtime.

Pick one role, look up its national median and one real employer posting today, and compare the two before you believe any list. While you search, the free tools on Art of Code handle the small stuff, and the Art of Code jobs board lists developer roles you can apply to now.

Written by Adithya Guttha, Founder of Art of Code.