Which Degrees Pay the Most Around the World in 2026?

Engineering leads on starting pay in every market checked for this article, and computer science leads in the United States; in the UK, IT (£29,120) ranks below business and management (£30,190). US computer science graduates start at $81,535 a year, according to a Class of 2026 employer projection from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). UK electrical and electronic engineering graduates earn an average £36,115 fifteen months after graduation (HESA Graduate Outcomes, 2022/23 cohort), and Australian engineering graduates start at a median AUD $82,500 (QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey, 2025). Law and general business degrees start lower in the markets where they were measured (the UK for both, Australia for law), but reach high established-career pay in roles such as financial manager or lawyer (Table 2). The comparison below focuses on fields Eduniversal ranks schools in: engineering, computer science and IT, law, and business and management, rather than every field of study that exists.

Which degrees pay the most right after graduation?

Ten data points across three countries, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, were measured for this article. Engineering leads in every market checked, and computer science leads in the United States, while in the UK IT (£29,120) ranks below business and management (£30,190). The table below lists each field with its own currency, cohort and measurement point, because none of these figures have been converted into a single currency. The reasoning behind that choice is explained in full under the methodology section further down this article.

Two of the ten figures in the table above, both from the United States, are projections rather than salaries graduates have already received. The National Association of Colleges and Employers surveyed employers between October and November 2025 about what they expected to pay the incoming Class of 2026, before those students had graduated. The other eight figures, from HESA in the United Kingdom and QILT in Australia, are salaries that graduates reported after they were already working, fifteen months after graduation in the UK's case and four to six months after in Australia's case. A projected salary and a measured salary answer different questions, even when they sit in the same table.

Within the UK data alone, for the 2022/23 cohort, the six fields measured for this article span £8,425, from £36,115 for electrical and electronic engineering down to £27,690 for law (HESA Graduate Outcomes). Within the two Australian fields measured here, for the 2025 survey, the gap is narrower: AUD 2,500 separates engineering's AUD $82,500 from law and paralegal studies' AUD $80,000 (QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey). These internal ranges say more than a cross-country comparison would, because every figure inside a single range comes from the same survey, the same currency and the same cohort.

This table does not include every field Eduniversal ranks schools in. Arts and luxury fields, for instance, are not part of this comparison, because no primary entry-level salary source specific to those fields across these three countries was located during research for this article. The ten figures above cover only engineering, computer science and IT, law, and business and management, the four fields for which comparable primary salary data exists in the sources used here.

Do the same degrees pay the most in every country?

Engineering leads in every market measured for this article, and computer science leads in the United States, but the fields ranked beneath them differ by country (in the UK, IT at £29,120 ranks below business and management at £30,190), and so does which fields even have data available. Only engineering has an entry-level figure in all three markets checked here. Computer science and IT have figures for the United States and the United Kingdom, but not Australia. Law has figures for the United Kingdom and Australia, but not the United States. Business and management has a figure only in the United Kingdom. This is a gap in the sources located for this article, not a claim that the missing figures do not exist.

No currency conversion has been applied anywhere in this article. Comparing $81,535 in the United States to £36,115 in the United Kingdom, or to AUD $82,500 in Australia, is not simply a question of exchange rates. Each figure comes from a different survey, a different cohort and a different point in time after graduation, and converting one currency into another would create a false sense of precision the underlying surveys were never designed to support. The methodology section below sets out exactly what can and cannot be concluded from placing these figures side by side.

Every field that ranks first or second in its market for this article, US computer science, US engineering, UK electrical and electronic engineering, and Australian engineering, sits within science, technology, engineering or mathematics broadly defined. Law and business and management, the two non-STEM fields measured here, rank behind at least one STEM field in every market where they were measured. This pattern holds across all three currencies and all three survey designs used in this article, even though the currencies themselves are not directly compared.

What do engineering degrees pay in the US, the UK and Australia?

Engineering is the only field with an entry-level figure in all three markets measured for this article, and it ranks first or second in each one. US engineering graduates are projected to start at $81,198 a year for the Class of 2026, a figure NACE gathered directly from employers, and one that sits within $337 of the US computer science figure. In the United Kingdom, the HESA data splits engineering into three disciplines rather than one: electrical and electronic engineering leads at £36,115, followed by mechanical engineering at £33,000 and civil engineering at £31,820, all measured fifteen months after the 2022/23 cohort graduated. In Australia, engineering appears as a single combined field in the QILT survey, at a median AUD $82,500 in the 2025 survey, measured four to six months after graduates finished their studies.

Within the UK data alone, for the 2022/23 cohort, the three engineering disciplines measured for this article span £4,295, from £36,115 for electrical and electronic engineering down to £31,820 for civil engineering, with mechanical engineering at £33,000 in between. That range sits entirely within engineering as a broad category.

Schools ranked among Eduniversal's engineering schools of excellence span all three of the markets measured in this section.

What do computer science and IT degrees pay?

Computer science shows the highest US entry-level figure in the data set gathered for this article: $81,535 a year, projected by employers for the graduating Class of 2026 in the United States, according to the NACE Winter 2026 Salary Survey. The United Kingdom figure for this field is £29,120 for IT graduates, measured fifteen months after the 2022/23 cohort finished their studies, according to HESA Graduate Outcomes. The two figures describe different currencies, different survey designs and, in the US case, a projection rather than a measured outcome, so the size of the gap between them should not be read as a direct comparison.

The US figure in this section describes computer science specifically, while the UK figure describes IT as a separate labeled category in the HESA data; the two labels are not identical, and no separate UK computer science figure was located in the sources used for this article, just as no separate US IT figure was located. This is a labeling difference in the underlying surveys, not a decision made for this article.

No entry-level computer science or IT figure for Australia was located in the sources used for this article, so the comparison for this field covers two markets rather than three. Schools of excellence ranked in AI and IT is where Eduniversal ranks schools teaching this field.

What does a law degree pay, and how much more do lawyers earn later in a career?

Law starts lower than every engineering figure and the computer science figure measured for this article, in both markets where entry-level law data was found. UK law graduates earn an average £27,690, measured fifteen months after the 2022/23 cohort graduated, according to HESA Graduate Outcomes. Australian law and paralegal studies graduates earn a median AUD $80,000, measured four to six months after finishing, in the 2025 survey, according to the QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey. No entry-level US law figure was located in the sources used for this article, so the United States is not part of the law comparison in Table 1 above.

No entry-level US law salary appears in Table 1 because a US law degree, the Juris Doctor, is typically pursued after a bachelor's degree rather than as a bachelor's degree itself, which places it outside the scope of an undergraduate salary survey such as NACE's. The United Kingdom and Australian law figures above describe undergraduate law degrees instead, which is why an entry-level US comparison is not available in the sources used for this article, while an established-career US lawyer figure is available in Table 2 below.

The picture changes once a legal career is established. In the United States, lawyers earn a median $159,670 a year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, for data covering May 2025. That figure describes someone already working as a lawyer, at any point in their career, not a graduate's first salary out of law school, and it should not be set directly against the UK or Australian entry-level figures above. The gap between a law graduate's starting pay and an established lawyer's median pay in the United States is covered in full further down this article, alongside ten other established-career occupations.

Law schools ranked among Eduniversal's schools of excellence include institutions active across these three markets.

Which careers turn a high-paying degree into an even higher salary over time?

Eleven US occupations, each requiring at least a bachelor's degree, show median annual salaries above $110,000 once workers are already established in the role, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, for data covering May 2025. Every figure in the table below describes someone already working in that occupation, at any stage of their career from newly qualified to decades of experience, not a new graduate's starting salary. Reading a figure from this table against a figure from Table 1 above, as if the two measured the same thing, would misrepresent both.

Four of the eleven occupations in this table sit within the engineering field discussed earlier in this article: petroleum engineers at $144,910, aerospace engineers at $134,960, chemical engineers at $125,040 and electrical engineers at $120,630, all for data covering May 2025 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Each of these figures describes an established engineer, not a new graduate, and each sits well above the $81,198 projected starting salary for a US engineering graduate in Table 1 above, though the two figures cannot be compared as a straight raise since they measure different points in a career and different specific occupations.

Four more occupations connect to the computer science field discussed earlier: computer and information systems managers at $175,140, computer and information research scientists at $140,300, software developers at $134,040 and data scientists at $120,230, all for data covering May 2025. Computer and information systems managers is the single highest figure in this entire table, $93,605 above the $81,535 projected starting salary for a US computer science graduate in Table 1, though again the two describe different points in a career rather than a direct raise.

Lawyers, at a US median of $159,670 for May 2025, and financial managers, at $166,570 for the same country and year, are the two occupations in this table connected to fields discussed elsewhere in this article: law and business and management respectively. Actuaries, at a US median of $130,000 for May 2025, are the one occupation in this table with no directly connected entry-level figure measured anywhere else in this article, since no US actuarial science or mathematics degree figure was located in the sources used here.

All eleven figures in this table come from the same source and the same data year, May 2025, which makes internal comparison across occupations more reliable than the cross-country comparison in Table 1 above. A reader who wants to compare occupations to each other, rather than across countries, can use Table 2 directly without the currency and survey-design caveats that apply everywhere else in this article.

Where can you study these high-paying fields?

Eduniversal ranks schools across each of the fields measured in this article. Business school rankings in the United States, business school rankings in the United Kingdom and business school rankings in Australia list schools active in the three markets this article draws salary data from, alongside the engineering, AI and IT, and law schools of excellence linked earlier in this article.

None of the three country pages linked above are limited to the fields discussed in this article; each lists the full range of business schools Eduniversal ranks in that country, alongside the vertical schools of excellence pages for engineering, law, and AI and IT linked earlier. Each of these pages groups ranked schools by Palme level rather than by a single numbered rank, reflecting how Eduniversal classifies schools generally. Readers comparing the salary data above against a specific school should check that school's own ranking page directly, since no individual school's Palme level is cited in this article.

How was this salary data measured?

Four primary sources were used for this article, named here in full. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook supplied the eleven established-career figures in Table 2, for data covering May 2025. HESA Graduate Outcomes supplied six United Kingdom entry-level figures, for the 2022/23 cohort, measured fifteen months after graduation. The QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey supplied two Australian entry-level figures, for the 2025 survey, measured four to six months after completion. The National Association of Colleges and Employers, NACE, supplied the two US entry-level figures, projected ahead of the Class of 2026 graduating.

Table 1 and Table 2 measure two different concepts, and this article treats that distinction as a rule rather than a detail. Table 1 measures entry-level pay: a salary graduates reported shortly after finishing their degree, in the HESA and QILT cases, or a salary employers projected ahead of graduation, in the NACE cases. Table 2 measures the median salary of workers already established in a named US occupation, regardless of how recently they graduated. A figure from Table 2 read as if it were a starting salary, or a figure from Table 1 read as if it described a mid-career professional, would misread both tables.

No purchasing-power-parity or exchange-rate conversion has been applied anywhere in this article. A US dollar figure, a UK pound figure and an Australian dollar figure appear next to each other in Table 1 so that a reader can see how each market ranks its own fields internally, not as a converted, single currency scale. HESA measures its cohort fifteen months after graduation, QILT measures its cohort four to six months after graduation, and NACE measures a projection before graduation altogether, three different points in time that this article does not attempt to align into one timeline.

This article deliberately excludes medicine and healthcare, fields that typically top salary rankings of this kind elsewhere, because they are not among the business, law, engineering, AI and IT, or arts and luxury verticals Eduniversal ranks schools in. This comparison was compiled by Eduniversal's ranking team in July 2026 and updated in November 2026, drawing on the four primary sources named above rather than on any third-party ranking or aggregator of salary data.

This article does not claim that engineering and computer science are the highest-paying fields in an absolute sense across all fields of study; it only compares the fields for which primary salary data was located during the research for this article: engineering, computer science and IT, law, and business and management. Fields outside this scope, including medicine, healthcare and finance disciplines not named above, may pay more or less than the fields compared here, and no claim is made either way.

Frequently asked questions about the highest-paying degrees

What degree has the highest starting salary in the United States?

Computer science shows the highest projected US starting salary among the fields measured for this article: $81,535 a year for the graduating Class of 2026, according to the NACE Winter 2026 Salary Survey. This figure comes from a survey of employers conducted in October and November 2025, before that class had graduated, so it describes what employers expected to pay rather than a salary already paid out. US engineering, at a projected $81,198, sits within $337 of this figure and uses the same NACE survey and methodology. This article does not report a measured, already-earned starting salary for computer science in the United States, only this employer-side projection.

Do the highest-paying degrees pay the same amount in every country?

No. Engineering leads the entry-level figures gathered for the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, and computer science leads in the United States, but the amounts are not directly comparable across the three. This article makes no purchasing-power-parity or exchange-rate conversion between the $81,535 US figure, the £36,115 UK figure and the AUD $82,500 Australian figure: each comes from a different survey, a different cohort and a different measurement window after graduation. The methodology section above sets out exactly what each figure can and cannot be used to conclude. This article also does not claim these are the only three markets where these fields pay well, only the three markets for which primary salary data was located during research for this article.

Can you earn six figures with only a bachelor's degree?

Yes, in several US occupations, once a career is established rather than at a first job. Financial managers earn a median $166,570 a year and computer and information systems managers earn a median $175,140, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, for data covering May 2025. These are salaries for people already working in the role, sometimes years into their career, not entry-level salaries for new graduates, and they should not be compared directly to the starting salaries in Table 1 above. No occupation below $110,000 in Table 2 appears in this article, so occupations that pay well but fall under that threshold are not covered here.

Does a high starting salary always mean a better long-term career?

Not necessarily. Law starts lower than every engineering figure measured for this article, at £27,690 in the United Kingdom and AUD $80,000 in Australia, but an established lawyer in the United States earns a median $159,670 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, for data covering May 2025. The field with the lowest starting figure measured for this article is not the field with the lowest established-career figure. Reading Table 1 and Table 2 together, rather than only one of the two, shows how the ranking of a field can change depending on when in a career it is measured. The same pattern likely applies to other fields not covered in this article, though this article only verifies it for law specifically.