I have been working in power plants for over ten years. Entry level plant operators can make six figures with a high school diploma. At a decent plant, you'll be balls to the wall busy on 5-10% of your shifts, pretty steady with general routine stuff that's mostly just confirming that shit is normal 80% of the time, and the remaining 10% is in outages which can vary between busting your ass and waiting around but it's rough either way because you might be working every day for a few weeks. Every plant I've been to does 12 hour shifts with pretty frequent changes between days and nights, which is by far the worst part. You'll have an easier time getting in and moving up if you are pretty good with STEM stuff, but you're fine if you passed honors physics in high school. V=IR and PV=nRT will get you really far. Spatial reasoning skills are also really helpful.

I'm at a combined cycle natural gas plant where I started as an outside operator almost 3 years ago at $39.80/hour and am now a ZLD water treatment operator in the same plant at $52/hour; control room operators start at about $60/hour here. I had a really shitty 12 hour shift today so I earned every dime of that wage, but sometimes it's only like 4-6 hours of work in a 12 hour shift and a bunch of reading or YouTube in between while monitoring everything. Even the tough shifts are kinda good sometimes because I get to work the puzzle part of my brain.

Being a monarch or some kind of royalty seems to be excellent financially and often overlooked.

Trades. Become an electrician or a plumber or any number of other skilled contractor position. Financially you'll be set for life.

Garbage truck driver

Learn FORTRAN, and you’ll be set for life.

Tech support for factory machines. I used to work in a fairly modern (in terms of products) factory, and the SMT assembly machines were positively archaic. Most were decades old by the time I quit, they all had their own quirks, and very few people who could troubleshoot them. The factory was shut down every weekend, and getting the machines to talk to each other and the server on Monday mornings was a ritual just short of praying to the Omnissiah.

If you really want IT. Then telecom

Most people in telecom are old and are analog phone people, they don't know ip/sip and don't want to learn.

It's basically a small networking job that you never get calls on nights and weekends about and if you do it's a system you can reboot remotely. If it's not the system it's a switch and its someone else's job.

Telecom isn't sexy but it's still needed, no one's going into it as it's not 'sexy' and to be honest it's easy AF.

It wasn't when I took it, but condominium superintendent. I fell into it. It's very minor work since all the repairs are done by contractors. I'm just a homesteader essentially, I get up and make sure the property is cared for.

I get paid $50k a year plus benefits, pension, Union, and I get a rent free condo unit, free internet and cable, free phone.

The free apartment saves me roughly $2500 a month on rent, in this ridiculous city I live in, so that alone makes this job extremely worth it

If you learn graphic design and are good with IT then there's a lot of small companies that need an 'everything guy'.

You see them advertised as graphic design jobs but with executives assistant responsibilities in the descriptions.

There are a lot more jobs in the medical profession than doctor or nurse. It's indoors so climate controlled. There's 2 yr programs that start out around 60k a year.

In the IT field particularly, if you like programming, Ada and COBOL are easy to learn, not desirable for young people because they’re not fashionable languages, and pay well because the old people that know them are retiring.

Electrician, especially if you're ok with relocating. So many places around the world lack electricians when the infra just keeps growing everywhere.

If you aren't risk adverse I hear undersea welders make a ton.

Dental Hygienist. They make like $40/hour to clean people's teeth. It only requires an associates degree and you can get it from community college (aka cheap).

[off topic]

Try this book. "Discover What You Are Best At." Linda Gail. First half of the book is a series of self administered tests to see what you are good at. Things like math, mechanical problem solving, interpersonal skills etc. Second part is a listing of jobs that use those skills.

HVAC. Takes just as much to learn as other trades but you make way more money.

Machinist, electronics, or glass shop at a large university. Half make more than most professors (although that isn't saying much)

Database Administrator (DBA) can be a lucrative position with a low barrier to entry. Can bridge nicely into data science/AI if you want to go that route. Data is the new oil, and AI/LLMs are the refineries.

If you have both the skillset and the mind for it, red team cybersecurity is super interesting, but it's hard to get into and even harder to do well

The finance sector has been good to me, worked at the same place for 8 years, was well paid, got laid off due to cutbacks as my skills were not needed anymore, but got a good deal and am now at another finance company earning more and doing more interesting stuff.

My roles have all been in IT.

In Norway, fishing has the reputation of being a good fit for many who struggles with more theoretical professions while being very, very well paid. Like highly paid IT consulatant sallary.

Offshore seismic survey. The positions vary in title, but technician, observer, seabed logger, etc are, quite honestly, easy as fuck. If you're able to display reasonably good troubleshooting skills and adaptability to a "different" kind of job, you're golden. Pays quite well too. Your background certainly plays a role, but it's more about being the right kind of well-rounded personality.

Pros: Computers, heavy machinery, robotics, nice people, loads of travel, nice ships (most of them, at least), five weeks at home to do whatever you want, well paid.

Cons: Five weeks offshore gets tiring, you sometimes find yourself in the shittiest shitholes in the world, the work can be really repetitive and boring, and if you're unlucky you will find yourself on a ship with shitty food.

Source: I used to be one. Now I hold a more specialized supporting role instead. Been in the industry since 2008, and before that I had no fucking clue what I wanted to do with my life. It didn't take me long after to figure out "what I want to be when I grow up". I'm now 41, not quite a grownup, but I definitely am happy with my career.

What country are you in?

Trades generally make a decent amount. Masonry, carpentry, welding, transportation, electrical, plumbing, waste management, etc all have decent pay rates in most first world countries with codes and regulations.

Communications and drone operators might have a future career, depending on the job and company.

I cant comment on the ubiquity of these jobs. But I work for a (non us) national government organisation with a union. Pay is the same the country round so living in a relatively major city with significantly lower cost of living than the majors means I get a pretty damn good quality of life, better cost of living and job security out of less money than some jobs.

Its not just the dollar figure but what it gets you and where.