Montana Trade Jobs Can Pay Six Figures, No Degree Required

My son is still young enough that his career plans change about as often as the Montana weather. Some weeks he wants to build things. Other weeks he wants to fix cars, fly planes, or run his own business. I've started talking to him about trade jobs as a real option, not a backup plan, because the numbers here in Montana back that up. I still want him to go to college too, if only so he has something to fall back on, but I don't think that path is the only one that leads somewhere good anymore.

Tuition more than tripled between 1980 and 2022, and for a lot of families that changes the math on whether a four-year degree is worth the cost. Where you live in the country also affects how big the gap is between degree jobs and no-degree jobs, and Montana is one of the better places to skip the debt.

Montana Compares to the Highest-Paid No-Degree Job in the Country

Nationally, the NetCredit study found that a nuclear power reactor operator is the highest-paid job that doesn't require a degree, averaging $122,824 a year. That job only asks for a high school diploma to apply, though getting licensed to actually run the controls takes a long stretch of on-the-job training. Elevator and escalator installers and repairers also cracked the national top ten, averaging $104,874, though the study notes that work often means tight spaces, heights, and being on call around the clock.

Wyoming had the smallest gap of any state, where no-degree jobs average 82.3% of the statewide average salary. North Dakota and Mississippi followed close behind. Maryland sat at the other end, with no-degree jobs there averaging only 66.3% of the state's overall salary.

How Montana's No-Degree Pay Compares

The average salary for non-degree jobs in Montana is $46,322, or 79.6% of the average local salary across all occupations here ($58,157). That makes Montana one of the states with the smallest gap between what you can earn with a degree and what you can earn without one, not far behind states like Wyoming.

The data comes from NetCredit, which analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics figures to compare no-degree jobs with higher-qualification positions across every state. The team pulled occupations that don't require a degree according to the BLS Occupational Handbook, then used the BLS 2024 Occupational and Wage Estimates to find the average yearly salary for those jobs and others in each state.

Montana's Best-Paying No-Degree Job Tops Six Figures

Transportation, storage, and distribution managers rank as the best-paying job that doesn't require a degree in Montana, with an average annual salary of $101,941. That's the same type of role that topped the list in the New York tri-state area too, where NetCredit found it paying an average of $143,166. It's the kind of number that makes a trade or skills-based path look a lot less like a consolation prize.

Get our free mobile app

I keep coming back to this when my son rattles off his job of the week. College is still on the table for him, and I think it should be for most kids as an option worth keeping open. But watching these numbers, I feel a lot better about him learning a trade too, since here in Montana that road can pay off just as well.