Best Paying Jobs in Virginia (BLS Wage Data)

Virginia doesn't look like a high-wage state on paper. Its median hourly wage — $24.00, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — sits close to the national median. But that number hides an enormous spread: a cardiologist in Virginia earns roughly five times what the state's mean worker takes home, and the gap between a hospital's highest earner and its front-desk staff is wider than most "best-paying jobs" lists capture.

That's the problem with most of what currently ranks for this search. Open the results for "best paying jobs in Virginia" and you'll mostly find recycled national top-10 lists with no state-specific sourcing attached — the same generic "doctor, lawyer, pilot" lineup repeated without a single link back to where the numbers came from. None of them pull Virginia's own wage table, and none answer the question a lot of searchers actually have: which of these jobs can you get into without six figures of debt and eight years of school?

This list does both. Below are the 15 highest-paying occupations in Virginia using the state's own BLS wage data, followed by a separate list of high-paying Virginia jobs that don't require a bachelor's degree — the section most "best paying" roundups skip entirely.

Key takeaways

• Virginia's highest-paying occupation is cardiologist, at a mean annual wage of $399,570 — well over five times the state's overall mean wage of $70,050.
• Most of Virginia's 15 best-paying jobs split between physician specialties, executive/management roles, law, and technology.
• Several Virginia jobs pay six figures (or close to it) without requiring a four-year degree, led by air traffic controller at $162,620 mean.
• Northern Virginia's proximity to Washington, D.C. and federal contracting pulls the state's averages up sharply — pay in the rest of the state runs meaningfully lower, and so does the cost of living.

A note on the data

The figures below come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program for Virginia — the government's own state-level wage survey, not a national average stretched across every state. BLS's most recent full occupational detail table for Virginia covers May 2023; more recent years exist only as a downloadable spreadsheet BLS hasn't converted into a browsable table, so May 2023 is the newest year with occupation-by-occupation figures publicly readable this way. The figures are annual mean wages (Virginia's state table publishes mean annual pay — calculated from the hourly mean wage times 2,080 hours — rather than an annual median), so we also note median hourly rates where it matters. Actual pay at any single employer varies by region, experience, and whether the job is in Northern Virginia or elsewhere in the state.

The 15 best-paying jobs in Virginia

What's driving this list

Medicine dominates the top, but not evenly. Cardiologists, emergency medicine physicians and orthopedic surgeons sit at the very top because they combine years of residency and fellowship training with procedures hospitals bill heavily for. Nurse anesthetists — a nursing specialty, not a physician role — crack the top six on the strength of advanced certification (a doctorate or master's in nurse anesthesia plus national board certification) rather than medical school.

Virginia's federal footprint shows up directly. Chief executives, lawyers, and the cluster of management occupations (financial, PR, marketing, HR, architectural/engineering) all pay well here, largely because Virginia hosts a dense concentration of federal contractors, defense firms and consulting shops centered on Northern Virginia. Playroll's Virginia salary data puts the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro's mean annual wage at $90,730 — well above the statewide mean of $70,050 — and notes Loudoun County's median household income running close to $140,000, nearly double the statewide median of $72,577.

Air traffic controllers and software developers are the outliers worth noticing. Air traffic controllers make this list without a medical or law degree — more on that below. Software developers, meanwhile, have by far the largest workforce of anyone on this list — 86,680 people in Virginia alone — and a mean wage still north of $139,000, which says more about Virginia's tech-and-federal-IT employment base than any single employer.

Best-paying Virginia jobs that don't require a four-year degree

This is the part most "best paying jobs" roundups skip, and it's the more useful question for a lot of readers: which high-paying jobs in Virginia can you actually get into without a bachelor's degree?

Air traffic controller is the headline here, and it's genuinely more open than its pay suggests. The FAA's official qualification standards require US citizenship, passing the agency's aptitude and medical screening, and either one year of progressively responsible work experience, a bachelor's degree, or a combination of the two — no aviation background and no degree are legally required. The real catch is competition and training attrition, not credentials: fewer than 10% of applicants clear the initial screening, and once hired, reporting on FAA certification data puts roughly 20% of trainees failing to certify at their first assigned facility — sometimes far higher at busier hubs. It typically takes two to several years to reach full Certified Professional Controller status and the pay that comes with it, so the $162,620 mean reflects a workforce that's already cleared a genuinely hard filter, not an entry-level number.

Dental hygienist is the more realistic near-term move for most people. It's a two-year associate degree, not four, and Virginia's 4,080 hygienists earn a mean of $91,800. JobSnag's dental jobs category tracks current hygienist and dental-assistant openings if this is a path you're considering.

The trades cluster — elevator installers, power-line installers, power distributors — shares a pattern: an apprenticeship or utility-sponsored training track instead of college, lower pay while you train, and a ceiling that clears six figures once you're fully qualified. If skilled-trade work fits better, JobSnag's skilled trades jobs page lists current electrician, HVAC and related openings across the country.

Is a high-paying Virginia job worth chasing from out of state?

It depends heavily on where in Virginia the job actually is. The wages above are statewide averages, but Virginia's pay — like its cost of living — splits sharply along a north-south line. Northern Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun) runs well above the state averages shown here, and it also runs about 18% more expensive than the national cost-of-living baseline — by some estimates the third-priciest major labor market in the country, behind only San Francisco and New York. A six-figure salary that looks enormous on a national "best paying jobs" list can feel ordinary once Northern Virginia rent and Virginia's income tax take their share. Elsewhere in the state — Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley, Hampton Roads — the same job title often pays less, but so does everything else.

So which of these should you actually go after?

If you already have a bachelor's degree and want the fastest route to a six-figure Virginia salary, the management track (financial, HR, marketing, PR) and software development offer the broadest hiring pipelines on this list — tens of thousands of people already work in each, which means openings are constant. If you're building a career from scratch and don't want four years of school first, air traffic control pays the most by far, but it's a genuinely hard filter to clear; dental hygiene and the skilled trades are the more dependable route to a high-paying job without a bachelor's degree.

Either way, the number that matters isn't the state average — it's the specific employer, region and role you're actually applying to. You can browse current job openings on JobSnag to see what's hiring in Virginia and beyond right now, including the nursing roles that didn't crack this top-15 list on pay alone but employ far more Virginians — 70,650 registered nurses alone — than any single occupation above it. For another data-first ranking in this series, see our guide to the best-paying jobs in finance.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Virginia, May 2023 — full state wage table. FAA air traffic controller qualifications. Certification and washout reporting via the Associated Press, reported by the Anchorage Daily News. Regional wage and cost-of-living context via Playroll.