Best Paying Jobs in Consumer Services (BLS Pay Data)

A casino gaming manager overseeing a Vegas-style floor can clear well over six figures. A licensed cosmetologist two towns over, doing work that takes just as much training to get certified for, tops out closer to $36,000 a year. That gap is the whole story of consumer services: it's one of the biggest job sectors in the US economy, and the pay inside it swings harder than almost any other.

Consumer services covers the businesses built around serving people directly rather than selling them a physical product — hotels, restaurants, casinos and entertainment venues, salons and personal care, funeral homes, schools, travel agencies. It sits alongside consumer durables (cars, appliances) and non-durables (food, soap, packaged goods) as one of the economy's three big consumer-facing sectors, and together they employ a huge share of the US workforce.

So which roles in consumer services actually pay the most? Below are nine of the best-paying jobs in the sector, ranked by national median salary using the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data, released May 2025.

A note on the salary numbers

"Consumer services" isn't a single BLS job code — it's a sector made up of dozens of occupations. The figures below are national median wages for each specific occupation, pulled straight from BLS OEWS. Actual pay at any one employer depends heavily on location, company size and your level of experience; entry-level pay sits well below these medians, and senior roles at large chains or in high-cost cities can sit well above them.

The best-paying jobs in consumer services

1. Postsecondary education administrator — $104,590

These are the deans, registrars and department heads who run the business side of colleges, trade schools and for-profit education companies — a sizable and fast-growing slice of consumer services. The pay reflects the scale of the budgets and staff they oversee; it typically takes a master's degree and years of campus experience to get there.

2. Gaming manager — $93,220

Gaming managers run the floor at casinos — staffing, compliance, security and the gap between a good night and a bad one for the house. It's one of the higher-paid roles in consumer services, but it comes with a real cost: holiday, weekend and overnight shifts are the norm, not the exception, and growth above the floor-supervisor level can be slow. One table games supervisor with 23 years in the industry put it bluntly on the professional network Blind: "I work every holiday and weekend and barely see my wife and kids," despite being, in their words, "top 3" in their position and earning $78,000 a year with no holiday pay or bonus. The ceiling at the manager level is real — the floor-level jobs underneath it are a harder trade than the salary alone suggests.

3. Entertainment and recreation manager — $79,520

This covers the people running theme parks, sports venues, museums and recreation programs — not gambling operations, which BLS tracks separately. It's a people-and-logistics job: staffing an event, managing a facility budget, keeping guests safe and happy. A bachelor's degree is the usual starting point, though the field rewards hands-on operations experience just as much.

4. Funeral home manager — $78,790

Running a funeral home means managing licensed staff, facilities and a business that has to perform at its best during a family's worst week. It requires the same funeral director/embalmer licensure as frontline staff, plus a track record of management experience — which is why the pay sits well above the roles it supervises.

5. Food service manager — $69,390

Food service managers run the daily operations of a restaurant, cafeteria or catering business — staffing, inventory, budgets and the inevitable fires to put out mid-shift. It's one of the more accessible six-figure-adjacent paths in the sector: a high school diploma plus a few years working the floor is the typical route in, not a degree. If kitchen and restaurant leadership interests you, JobSnag's food service and hospitality jobs page lists current openings, including management-track roles.

6. Lodging manager — $69,250

Lodging managers run the business side of hotels, motels and resorts — occupancy, staffing, guest issues and the budget that ties it together. Like food service management, it's a role you can work up into from the front desk or housekeeping without a four-year degree, which makes it one of the more realistic ladders in the sector.

7. Chef or head cook — $62,470

Chefs and head cooks run the kitchen itself — menus, prep, plating standards and the line. It pays less than the management roles above it, but it's a specialized, in-demand craft with a clear path from line cook to sous chef to head chef, and BLS projects much-faster-than-average growth as restaurants keep expanding.

8. Travel agent — $50,160

Despite predictions the internet would make them obsolete, travel agents still build complex itineraries, corporate travel programs and destination weddings that people don't trust an algorithm to get right. Pay is modest compared to the rest of this list, and BLS projects essentially flat employment growth through the mid-2030s — this is a stable niche, not a growing one.

9. Barber, hairstylist or cosmetologist — $35,880

Personal care services are the clearest example of the sector's trade-off: licensing takes real time and money — a state-approved program plus a licensing exam — and the median pay afterward is modest. A 2021 analysis by the Institute for Justice found cosmetology programs then averaged roughly $16,100 in tuition with real student debt attached, against starting pay that often didn't clear it quickly. That said, it's genuinely the lowest-barrier entry point on this list, demand keeps growing (BLS projects 7% growth, much faster than average), and strong stylists with a loyal clientele and tips routinely out-earn the median. If personal care work interests you, JobSnag's personal care and community care jobs page has current listings.

The real trade-off: pay vs. hours

Look at the list again and a pattern shows up: the highest-paid roles in consumer services are almost all management and administrative jobs, sitting above the front-line workers who actually deliver the service. That's not unique to this sector, but it's unusually stark here, because so many consumer services jobs run on nights, weekends and holidays — exactly when the people being served have time off. The gaming manager quote above is the honest version of that trade-off: real pay, with a schedule that collides with everything else in your life.

Is consumer services a good career path?

For a lot of people, yes. It's one of the largest employment sectors in the country, it keeps adding jobs, and — unlike a lot of white-collar work — there are genuine ladders from an entry-level, no-degree job into six-figure management without ever going back to school. The honest caveat: the best pay is concentrated at the top of each ladder, front-line hours are often irregular, and a few corners of the sector (like personal care licensing) ask for real upfront cost before the paycheck catches up.

How to break in

If you're starting from scratch, the fastest ladders are food service and lodging management — both promote from the floor, both pay reasonably well at the manager level, and neither requires a degree to start. If you already have a bachelor's degree, education administration and entertainment/recreation management pay the most for a similar level of seniority. And if a trade license fits your plans better than four more years of school, personal care and funeral service both offer real careers — just go in with accurate numbers on cost and starting pay, not the promise alone. You can browse current openings on JobSnag across food service, hospitality, personal care and more to see what's hiring right now.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook and Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) — postsecondary education administrators, food service managers, lodging managers, entertainment and recreation managers, chefs and head cooks, travel agents, and barbers, hairstylists and cosmetologists. Gaming manager quote via Blind. Cosmetology licensing cost analysis via the Institute for Justice.