The highest-paying teen jobs have changed dramatically since the pandemic. What was once considered to be traditional has now become almost obsolete. How we go about doing traditional jobs has also changed.
Thanks to the global pandemic of Covid-19 and its endless string of variants, the necessity to transfer staff out of traditional vocations carried out in offices, and onsite buildings to the home environment mandated changes that took effect seemingly overnight.
In the wake of the global shift from office to the home office, came a variety of new careers and pathways to people who would not previously have been deemed suitable or qualified. The shift from working 9-5 hours has taken on a level of flexibility that amazingly increased productivity when replaced with the autonomy to work hours that suited the employee and allowed for a balanced life while still meeting the work demands.
Highest Paying Teens Jobs
If you think the standard battery of fast-food, retail, or supermarket jobs earn big money, then you are sadly mistaken. As digital natives, today’s youth are taught from birth to use artificial intelligence and technology. That knowledge has opened lucrative doors for children as young as ten to earn huge sums of money from their bedroom while gaming the day away. And that kicks off our first lucrative job for teens.
1. Gaming, AI & All Things Technology
From coding to programming, from content creation to game development. Software engineers are as young as ten and working from their bedrooms on creating the next global phenomenon in the gaming world. Those not working directly behind the scenes are actively playing the online content in tournaments and earning surprisingly huge amounts of money doing what they love most.
Freelance work as a game developer or software engineer offers a wage comparable to the skill level and demands of the person offering the service and nets about $60.00 per hour at entry level. That is not a small sum of money when you compare it to the average minimum wage of $17 per hour or the insidious wages that exploit eager teens in the fast food industry with $15 per hour rounded up.
2. Babysitters
While the babysitting industry has undergone some drastic changes, with the right support systems and safety measures in place, at between $20-$25 per hour. A babysitting gig for any teenager who can routinely get two days work a week, can make more than their friends at the drive-thru window.
Consider taking a First Aid course to boost your list of qualifications. Parents and potential clients will always hire a babysitter with current CPR and First Aid certification over a candidate who has no idea what to do if a child is choking or has stopped breathing.
3. Domestic Cleaning and Garden Maintenance
Anything to do with providing services to the domestic home as a sole trader or single self-employed individual, can be open to negotiation. The average domestic cleaner who sources their own clients can charge anything from $50- $90 per hour! You read that correctly. If you are lucky enough to land a government, NDIS or aged care client or contract, then you can expect to receive, on average, $85 per hour to provide domestic services.
4. Tutoring
If you are gifted in any academic or musical field, taking on the role of a private tutor can net you between $25-$50 per hour, depending on the difficulty in the subject matter and the tutors’ qualifications. That is nothing to knock back if you are looking for extra cash and have free afternoons after school to teach a musical instrument you’ve been practising since you were four years old. Perhaps you have a gift for numbers and explaining complex formulas and equations in an easy-to-understand manner your classmates, and school students would be willing to pay you to teach them.
5. Dog Walkers
More people than ever are willing to pay someone else to walk their dog, and some people regularly outsource pet groomers and trainers to take care of the hard work.
You can expect to charge or be charged between $17- $25 per hour for a dog walker. If you add to that pet training skills and behaviour modification and socialisation skills, you can be looking at $40 an hour to walk and teach someone else’s dog to sit, drop, stay and fetch.
Consider Taking An RTO Course
Another route you can take as someone looking to enter the workforce for the first time is to take on some pre-training in the form of gaining qualifications via a Registered Training Organisation.
By gaining certification prior to applying for the job, you place yourself at the top of the pile because the employer doesn’t have to spend the time and money to train you. When it comes down to two candidates, which do you employ, the one already possessing the skills and knowledge to hit the ground running or the one you need to train from scratch?
The following is a list of courses from the Skills Training College that are in high demand at the time of writing and might be worth considering if you are looking for work in the related fields.
