Are you tired of your teaching job and you want a fresh challenge with good pay? If YES, here are 50 best high paying career change ideas for teachers.
In 2014, an article was published by the Huffington Post titled “Teachers Who Leave the Classroom Seem to Be A Lot More Happier”. This article talked about some of the challenges that teachers go through on a daily basis, and how they are poorly rewarded for their efforts.
No doubt teaching is one of the most undervalued professions in the world because you get to work with students from all walks of life and with different mental capabilities but you have to carry everyone along and ensure that no one is left out.
Teaching is more of a service to humanity than a job because a teacher can never be adequately compensated for the kind of sacrifice that they make on a daily basis.
Therefore it’s quite understandable why a teacher may consider a career change sometimes. Whether you are retiring as a teacher and looking to start another career, or you are just tired of teaching in the classroom, we’ve come up with at least 50 different careers that you can consider:
50 Best High Paying Job Change ideas for Teachers
1. Company Trainer
You can use your professional training and teaching experience to become a company trainer. Most companies require the services of training instructors for their staff. Being a company trainer can earn you more reward and working conditions than being a classroom teacher.
2. Work for Testing Companies
There are some companies who specialize in creating and organizing aptitude tests for recruitment, student programs, entrance examinations, and selection tests. You can work for such companies to create and grade tests.
3. Sales Representatives
One of your strongest skill sets as a teacher is the ability to create excitement around topics in order to get people interested in what you are saying. This is a very important skill for sales representatives too. You can easily harness this skill to succeed as a sales representative.
4. Work for Publishing Companies
You can work with publishing companies to edit and organize manuscripts on behalf of their clients.
5. Tutoring Special Children
Special children with learning disabilities often need the help of special teachers. Parents of children with Dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning disabilities often hire special teachers to help their children. If you like helping people, this is a good career to pick up.
6. Online Tutoring
You can join websites that offer online tutoring services to school children. They help children with their homework and with courses that they may find challenging. This is still a teaching job but at least, you can do it from the comfort of your home.
7. Amazon/Createspace Publishing
Another idea is to write and publish your own books through platforms like Amazon that makes it easy for you to write and publish your own books without spending a dime on marketing and publishing.
8. App Developer
The educational industry still needs a lot of apps to make learning easier. You can make money from developing educational apps. With your teaching experience, it would be easier for you to develop helpful apps.
9. Educational Program Director
You can work with museums, zoos, resorts, cruise ships and holiday resorts to develop educational programs for children visitors.
10. Freelance Writing
You can work on freelancing platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to offer freelance or ghost writing services to bloggers, website owners and developers and authors who need to have contents written for them.
11. Curriculum Developer
You can help to create and tweak curriculums for schools, school boards and other organizations with educational programs.
12. Cyber School Teacher
Many students are embracing home schooling opportunities where they get to attend school via the internet. You can work as a cyber-school teacher for schools that offer such online learning opportunities.
13. Real Estate Agent
Another career where you can easily succeed with your teaching skills is real estate agency. As a teacher, you are already an expert at listening to people and helping them solve problems this skill can be used to help people buy, sell, and rent property.
14. Children’s Hospital Teacher
Another career opportunity you can pursue is teaching children who are bed-ridden in children’s hospitals. You’ll enjoy this career if you love helping people.
15. Prisons Teacher
You can work in prisons teaching inmates who wish to pursue educational opportunities whilst they are incarcerated.
16. E-Library
You can set up your own e-library and earn money from lending books out online. You can also sell ebooks online.
17. Study Groups
You can set up study groups for college or high schools students interested in after-school learning programs. You can also help students prepare for important examinations such as SAT and PSAT.
18. Arts and Crafts Teacher
With your fine arts teaching experience, you can set up an arts and crafts training school or center to teach children and adult how to make different arts and crafts. If you cannot afford to set up a training center, you can easily make money from it on line on platforms like YouTube or by setting up a membership site or blog.
19. Activity Director
Another idea is to work in Nursing home or retirement communities as an Activity Director for educational programs.
20. Teach English
Your experience as an English teacher can be used to teach English Language to foreigners and immigrants. You can also develop and sell English Language training courses, DVDs and other learning materials.
21. Academic Advisor/Counselor
If you are tired of teaching in the classroom but not tired of working in schools, you can consider switching to academic counseling to help students through their personal and academic challenges.
22. Kids Party Planner
You are already great with kids as a teacher; you can hone these skills to become a party planner for children’s parties.
23. Master of Ceremonies
Another way to put your skills to good use outside the classroom is to become an MC for corporate events, parties, and children’s events.
24. Nanny
You can earn good money per hour by offering nanny services to interested parents. A lot of parents would be more comfortable with an ex teacher handling their kids because you are already great with handling children.
25. Motivational Speaker
Motivational speakers earn a lot of money yearly. You can hone your good speaking and knowledge impartation skills to become a well-paid motivational speaker. You can even write and sell motivational books.
26. Politician
You can follow in the strides of people like Elizabeth Warren, Lyndon. B. Johnson, Justin Trudeau, and even ex-President Barrack Obama. These people were all teachers who turned successful politicians.
27. Published Author
As a retired teacher, there’s no better time to start working on those book ideas you’ve always had. You can write and publish educational books, memoirs of your experiences as a teacher or fictional works.
28. Education Liaison
Another suitable career for retired teachers is education liaison. As a seasoned teacher, you can help to train teachers and help with job placements in schools with teaching vacancies.
29. Computer Training
Your training and experience as an IT teacher can be put into good use in setting up a computer training center for kids, adults and working professionals. You can train them on how to use computers or how to use different software and computer packages.
30. Copywriting
Good Copywriters earn thousands of dollars yearly. If you want a career that wouldn’t take you outside your home, you can consider becoming a copywriter who writes sales copies and other sales materials to clients.
31. Work at Museums
Museums and other historical sites usually employ the services of people who can narrate histories and explain the significance of different materials and sites to their clients. You can easily work in one of such roles.
32. Entrepreneur
With your strong problem solving and listening skills, as well as your ability to explain things to people, you can perform well in an entrepreneurial role.
33. Grant and Business Plan Writing
Your good writing skills and eyes for details can be put to good use as a business plan writer who helps potential and existing business owners to write brilliant grant and business proposals, as well as business plans for their businesses.
34. Set up a Private School
If you can afford the funds, you can become a proprietor. You can set up a private school, and then employ other teachers to work for you.
35. Psychologist
Teachers can also do well as psychologists. If you don’t mind going back to school to pick up a degree in psychology, you can easily change from a teaching career to a career in clinical psychology.
36. Personal Trainer
Your teaching skills as a physical education teacher can be put into good use to become a personal trainer. You can work at a gym, or with private clients looking to improve their health and fitness levels.
37. Paralegal
Your good research skills can be used in the legal industry. You can consider switching to working as a paralegal in a law firm.
38. Youth Organizations
Another career change idea for teachers is working for non-profit organizations targeting youths as a program director or in any other significant role.
39. Adult Care
Another idea is to become a care giver to adults and senior citizens.
40. Movie Scriptwriting
Your storytelling skills can earn you some impressive income as a scriptwriter.\
41. Summer Camp Organizer
If you don’t mind a seasonal but highly lucrative business, you can consider a business that involves organizing summer camps for children.
42. After-School Daycare
Parents who work late sometimes prefer to enroll their kids in after-school programs rather than leave them all by themselves or in the care of child sitters. You can make money from developing one of such programs.
43. Lecturer
Another career change idea to consider as a teacher is to become a lecturer. You might have to enroll for some further studies and obtain a higher degree to qualify as a lecturer but in the end it will be worth it as lecturers usually earn more, and are offered better working conditions than teachers.
44. Translation/ Transcription Services
You can also help you clients to transcribe legal or medical documents, or convert audio scripts into written documents.
45. News Reporter
You can also switch careers to become a news reporter. As a teacher, speaking to the public is one of your strongest skill sets and you can easily succeed as a news reporter with this skill.
46. Magazine Publisher
Another idea is to start publishing magazines. You can publish educational magazines or non-educational magazines depending on what you think would sell faster in your locality.
47. Web Designer
Web designing is a very lucrative business these days. You can easily offer web design services from home, as a part-time gig or as a full-time career. You can also add other IT-related services such as graphics design, video editing services and other related services so as to expand your income potential.
48. Book Keeping
If you teach any subject related to book keeping or accounting, you can start a book keeping business to help small business owners around you to manage their account books, file their taxes, and offer advisory services in exchange for some good income.
49. Credit Counseling
A lot of people are signing up for credit counseling programs nowadays as a solution to their debt problems. As a teacher, you are already good at listening to people, teaching them and convincing them to do what you advise. These are great skills that can be used to get to the top of a credit counseling career.
50. Law Enforcement Officer
You can also take up a career in law enforcement. Teachers are naturally trained to enforce rules and discipline so you wouldn’t find a career in law enforcement too strange or unfamiliar.
In conclusion
If there are many career change options that you can explore as a teacher. The key is to find out which strong skills you have and then find out which other careers or industries usually need people with such skills.
You can also take up a second career that you can do alongside teaching (especially online opportunities), these can be used to supplement your teaching job and give you another interesting career outside teaching.