What Are The Best Future-Proof High Income Skills To Learn?

Are you trying to figure out what skill you should learn to earn a high income but aren't sure what to pick?

Maybe you're on the fence on a few skills and aren't sure what to commit to?

Or maybe you want to see what are the best options out there before you dedicate tons of time pursuing a particular skill?

Well in this letter I'm going to cover what I think are the 9 best high income skills out there today.

Before I get into these 9 skills however, there's a few things I believe are important to understand.

Firstly, any skill can "technically" become a high-income skill if you're one of the best in the world at that skill…

Even if it's a skill that most people will earn either next to nothing or very little with.

Take something like a fighter for example — might be an MMA fighter, a boxer, whatever…

This is a skill that you could be great at, but the reality is that most fighters don't earn a good living even if they're great.

You truly have to be one of the best in the world if not the best, have lots of fans and promote yourself well enough where you can put butts in seats — then you'll earn absolutely insane amounts.

But those who achieve this are very few.

The reality for most fighters is struggling to earn enough to survive and often needing another job or two to pay the bills.

There's many skills that are like this — but I want to focus on skills that you don't necessarily need to be one of the best in the world at to make a high income…

You just need to reach a certain level and you'll already earn a high income…and if you're truly great then you'll make a killing.

Now there's a lot of skills that you can earn a lot with, but these come with a lack of flexibility and scalability resulting in a ceiling cap that's very difficult to overcome…

These are also skills I want to avoid.

This would be things like:

• Accountants

• Doctors

• Lawyers

• Engineers

• Pilots

• Specialized Technicians (electrician, plumber, HVAC, mechanic, etc.)

• Professor

• Dentist

• And so on

These all earn really well, but have some downsides.

Let's look at accounting first…

Every business needs accounting, right?

Yes, but this is something where you specifically need to have a time-for-service model making you trade time for money.

Only way to scale with this is to:

• Move into advisory

• Selling an accounting software

• Having accounting automation

• Or a scalable firm

Then there's doctors…

They earn great, but they also require deep expertise and many years of education before they can truly enter the job market.

Then once they are working as a doctor, you're capped by trading time for helping patients.

Only way to really scale with this is either doing something like:

• Investing some kind of medical product

• Or perhaps building an education brand

Then we have lawyers where again you require deep expertise and many years of education…

Here you're capped by the hours you can put in and by the firm you're in.

Sure a lawyer can earn a ton, but when I think of high income skills, I like those where you can apply the skills in different ways that let you scale far past the earning ceiling of a job.

With a lawyer, you can only really do that if:

• You sell some kind of legal tech product

• Have a content brand

• Or build your own firm

Engineers are another one that earn great, but again you have an earning cap…

And applying the skill in a way that let's you scale past the normal earning cap is difficult.

Pilots too earn great, but the only way I can think of applying the skill where you can scale past what a pilot earns is by building an aviation education brand.

With specialized technicians, scaling past what you normally earn is difficult too…

And all you can really do is perhaps own crews or have a regional business — although even this doesn't get great scale.

Then with professors, of course trade time for money.

With professors I'd say the main way they can scale is by building an education brand teaching what they already teach but in a more scalable model.

Then with Dentists you can only really scale by owning multiple clinics or shifting into consulting or education — which may even involve helping other practice owners grow their businesses.

With these skills it's still definitely possible to scale and there's many who do go down these routes to scale way past what they'd normally earn…

But the skills I'll go over are those where the path to scale is a lot more streamlined — and where you are flexible in terms of options of ways that the skills can also be applied through business to earn far more.

I just wanted to go over some of the common skills that others find appealing and to go over some of their downsides.

However if one of those skills above is what you're truly passionate about then I'd say any of the downsides shouldn't stop you — it's most important that you enjoy what you do…

Unless what you enjoy doing is something like underwater basket weaving…then in that case pick something else please.

Now, let's get into the high income skills that I believe are the most valuable to focus on in today's age if you want something that will easily earn you 6-figures at a job AND can be applied in multiple ways that let you scale even way past this.

1. Copywriting

First let's look at copywriting.

If you don't know what copywriting is, it's basically salesmanship in print — it's the art of persuading someone to make a transaction through words.

Also these words don't necessarily need to be something that's only read, it can also be in a video format which is used for things like video sales letters (VSLs) and Webinars.

Whatever the format, what's important is the words used and whether they're persuasive enough to increase the conversion rate of sales.

Why copywriting is so valuable is because of the market value that it provides if you're really good at it.

If you're able to increase the conversion rate of a sales page by even as little as 1 or 2 percent, that's actually really huge.

Imagine if a sales page is converting at 1% — that means that every 100 people that land on that page convert into a sale.

And let's say that sale results in $1,000.

If you now increase the conversion rate to 2% — that's now $2,000 for every 100 visitors on the page…

And 3% would be $3,000 for every 100 visitors on the page.

By increasing the conversion rate by just 1%, you've just doubled the revenue generated by the page…

And by increasing it by 2% you've tripled the revenue!

Now $1,000 extra from a 1% increase in conversion rate might not seem like a lot, but this is for every 100 visitors to the page…

Imagine this page gets 1,000 visitors per day — that's literally an extra $10,000 per day!

That's the power of percentages…

If a sales page is already getting a lot of visitors and you can crank up that conversion rate percentage by even a bit, that can lead to a massive revenue increase.

This is why copywriting is such a high income skill, because it can bring tons of market value if done well…

And if you're the one bringing tons of market value, then you will also be compensated a lot for it.

Plus with something like copywriting, if you're offering it as a service, you can create contracts that don't make it a time-for-money type of model.

Instead, you can charge per project — and beyond this you can introduce royalties.

Then the royalties can be applied in different ways:

• Usage: this could be something like charging $0.01 per every mail order ad sent out — meaning if you mail 5 million mail order ads per year you'd get $50,000 per year in royalties

• Usage per insertion: this could be things like a radio commercial or print ad where you have a fee plus another say $50 or $100 every time that it runs

• Per result: this could be something like dollars per lead or say $0.10 per coupon that's redeemed

• Per event: this could involve the number of people that attend a seminar

• Percentage of gross sales: this is simply taking a percentage of the revenue that comes in as a result of your advertising before other expenses are deducted

• Percentage above base: this would be something like a client is already advertising and say last year did $1 million — now $1 million would be their base which means they don't pay a royalty on the first $1 million, but anything generated past this from your advertising they'd pay a royalty on, for example 5% on everything over $1 million

This means that you can do things like get a percentage of the extra earnings from the asset you created on top of the price to create the asset.

For example, if you create a video sales letter that's on a sales page that the client is driving traffic to — then you can get a percentage of the revenue coming from this sales page.

You are able to do this specifically because something like a video sales letter is a marketing asset — as is a landing page, sales funnel, marketing email, Webinar script, etc.

This is why this skill is very scalable, plus you have other models you can use with this skill like coaching, consulting, education, etc.

So you have a high income skill that has tons of market value and is very flexible — that's why it's truly a great choice.

Plus when you know copywriting really well, you can use AI to greatly speed up the process of putting together these assets.

2. Media Buying

Next high income skill is media buying.

This is the skill of paid advertising.

It's all about getting a message in front of the right people.

This means first finding where these people are congregating and then putting an ad in front of them that makes them stop what they're doing and gets them to act…

And the skill of copywriting plays a role here…

Copywriting was all about using words to persuade.

In media buying, you're essentially using words to persuade someone to click on an ad and enter a marketing funnel.

This is a skill around being able to simultaneously optimize around feeding a target audience with a message that gets them to act and also feeding a platform algorithm with the right inputs that help your ads perform better.

Therefore, as a media buyer you're playing a game of optimizing an ad for both a human and a machine (the platform algorithm).

Once you're really good at media buying, then you unlock the ability to turn $1 into $2, or even more.

This unlocks the ability to basically create a money printing machine where you put money in and more money comes out…

And that's clearly very valuable which is what makes this a high income skill.

What's really important with this skill is not just having the ability to put $1 into advertising and getting $2 back, but being able to do that at large scale.

Who cares if you can put $100 into advertising and make every $500 back — at the end of the day you only made $400.

What really sets someone apart that's great at this skill is when they can put hundreds of thousands of even millions into advertising and bring in profit.

This is because the more you scale, the colder the audiences that you're putting ads in front of making the return on investment much lower.

Therefore if you can maintain even a 2x return on investment — meaning putting in $1 and getting $2 back, that's incredibly powerful.

Of course you need to actually posses the ability to pull this off and that's by no means an easy thing to do…but being great at anything isn't easy.

But this is one of those skills that when you are great at it, you can apply it in ways that can make you scale far beyond any job.

This can be by:

• Doing media buying for others as a service

• Using it to sell your own offers

• Or even building an educational brand

3. Sales

Next there's sales.

This is the skill of being able to persuade through the words you speak.

It's about being able to create rapport, say the right things, ask the right questions, effectively overcome objections and confidently present the price and close the sale.

What's great about this skill is that in a job setting it's commission based.

Meaning that the better you perform the more you'll earn — meaning there's not as much of a ceiling cap on your earnings.

There still are limits though, like:

• The size of the commission

• The price of the offer you're selling

• The amount of people you can realistically close in a single day

But because this skill is flexible you can overcome these things.

You can do things like focus on high ticket sales meaning you'll also make far more when closing these deals…

And if you have offers of your own, guess what?

You'll have the ability to sell these offers effectively yourself and your commission in this case would be 100 percent!

Also skills like copywriting are essentially salesmanship in print — so this is a skill that easily translates into copywriting if you want more scale using marketing.

Another powerful thing with sales is that when it comes to jobs, there's no downsides for a business owner if you're paid through commissions.

If you get no sales, neither of you make money so there's no loss (other than you spending time and earning nothing of course).

If you do get sales, then you both make money so it's a win-win.

And if you get a lot of sales, then you both make a lot of money.

It's a rare skill that creates no real downsides for the business owner.

Then the better you get, the more you can earn — especially if you have the skill of closing people on high-ticket offers.

4. Content Creation & Personal Branding

Next we have the skill of creating content that resonates with a particular audience and building a personal brand.

In today's age this is a skill becoming increasingly important — even in the job market.

That's because a personal brand helps create trust.

This is why those with a personal brand on average earn much more than those without one in a job setting.

Then there's the flexibility of this skill…

If you build your own personal brand successfully, then you can technically earn far more than what a job could offer you…as long as you're selling something of value with your personal brand.

The fuel for a personal brand is content.

If you can create content that resonates with certain people and build an audience of people interested in this content…

Then you can unlock very high earning potential.

Plus other possibilities can open up later if you know how to do this successfully, like helping others build a successful personal brand too.

When it comes to this skill like all the other ones, it's when you're great at it that real results come.

This means not simply putting out random content that no one cares about and gets you nowhere…

There's plenty of people doing that.

It's about creating content that peaks someones curiosity, keeps them engaged, and turns them into a fan of your work.

There's also the game of how to get the content in front of other people…

This involves things like search engine optimization (SEO), and for a platform like YouTube it further involves creating titles and thumbnails that get someone to click and watch the video.

When it comes to content creation, you need to be able to create content that helps you grow an audience, create content that demonstrates your authority in some area, and create content that builds a connection through real authenticity.

This skill also requires you being able to put yourself out there in front of the world and risk being judged…

Risk having others comment negative things, call you stupid, and so on.

Because with this skill you're putting yourself out there, putting out your views and opinions for others to watch and critique.

However, if you're able to get over this mental hurdle, this is a powerful skill in today's age and in the years to come.

With this skill you're able to build something that compounds over time the more you put out there.

It's like planting seeds over and over…

The progress feels slow…

Then after enough years, suddenly there's a forest.

Content creation and personal branding is very similar in that sense.

You're planting seeds that won't blossom right away…

But given enough time it can grow to become something incredible.

That's why content creation and personal branding is one of the best high income skills you can learn today.

5. Consulting

Next we have consulting which can involve a number of things.

The type of consulting that you do depends on what it is that you're good at.

And when it comes to consulting, if you want this to be a high income skill then you must focus on providing this consulting for business owners.

Business owners are busy and don't want to waste time trying to figure something out on their own because it's not worth it for them.

They also have money to spend and will gladly spend it if you can help them learn and implement something quickly.

For example, if you're very tech savvy then you can help business owners with tech related problems — especially if they're a bit technologically challenged so to say.

As someone tech savvy, you can figure out tech related things very easily…now you just need to shift your focus into what tech related things would be helpful to a business owner.

If you can find ways to use technology in beneficial ways for business owners, then you can provide consulting packages to help them implement these things in their business.

From there all you really need to do is quickly hop on a few zoom sessions and help them get some beneficial systems up and running…if you can do this, then you can earn a lot.

For example, maybe you know how to help a business owner get set up on quickbooks and track their accounting there.

You can imagine a business owner probably doesn't want to spend time figuring out how to do this themselves, but they'd be happy to jump on a few zoom sessions and have you quickly help them set this up in their business if it'll help streamline their accounting.

Or perhaps a business owner could really benefit from having a CRM implemented, so you can learn how to use and implement a CRM like HubSpot, and then from there simply help business owners set this up in their business.

These are just a few examples to get the gears turning.

When it comes to consulting, you don't need to be able to solve some crazy huge problem.

You don't need to come in and help a business owner implement some systems that help them generate an extra $10 million in their business…

All you need is to solve a small painful problem and that's it.

It doesn't need to be some problem that took you years of learning and experimenting to figure out…

It can literally be super simple stuff that people know is important but they don't want to go through the effort of figuring it out themselves.

Literally something as simple as even installing a Facebook pixel on someones website is stuff you could charge for.

When people think consulting, often they feel they need to be helping with some massive problems.

Just keep it simple.

This is a great skill since it doesn't involve lots of your time to help someone, and you can charge higher prices since it's a done-with-you type of offer.

Plus it's flexible since there's a lot of different things you can help consult people on…

And the bigger the problems that you know how to solve, the more you can make with consulting.

If you help with small problems you can already earn a good amount…

But if you can consult someone on changes they can make in their business to earn far more profit, then imagine the kind of prices you can change then.

Only thing with consulting is that when economic conditions are tough, then businesses will often be looking at the consultants when they're determining where to cut costs.

None the less, consulting can be a great high income skill with a lot of flexibility attached to it.

6. Designer

Next there's designers — which involves both graphic and web designers.

Great designers are tough to come by, so if you're someone that becomes great at this then you can really earn a lot.

Plus like with all the other high income skills mentioned so far, this is another one with lots of flexibility.

You can earn a high income both in a job setting, and also through a business…

This can be doing some kind of design service, selling assets, or even having some kind of educational brand.

And if this skill is combined with another skills like developing mobile or web apps, then it opens up even more high earning options.

Then when it comes to web and mobile apps, if you're able to design great user interfaces and user experiences, that is insanely valuable.

A great design can help an app really shine.

When you have a great user interface and user experience then it will help users intuitively understand how to use an app and they're more likely to continue to use it.

If the app has a terrible user interface, bad user experience, isn't intuitive but rather confusing — then you can imagine people won't be using it for long even if it solves a problem really well.

Then when it comes to graphic design, this too has a lot of flexibility and value…

Let's say if you know how to create really good YouTube thumbnails that stop someone's scroll and gets them to click to view a video…

Or if you can make really good creative that you put on an ad…

That's extremely valuable, and people who create regular content or run ads would happily pay someone that can do this exceptionally well for them.

7. Mobile App Developer

Next there's a mobile app developer.

In a world where everyone treats their phone as if it's another limb on their body and can't seem to stop staring at their screens…

Knowing how to develop great mobile apps is extremely valuable.

This is another high income skill with lots of flexibility.

If you're great you can earn a high income in a job setting…

Or you can build your own apps and potentially have a hit if you build something great with demand and market it well.

There's even other options like building mobile apps as a freelance service…

Or even building an educational brand around teaching others how to build great mobile apps.

So there's really a lot of options here.

I'd say in today's landscape, it's probably better to focus on the hybrid approach to building mobile apps with things like React Native or Dart and Flutter.

This is a powerful way to get an app built that you can make available in both the Google Play Store and Apple's App store all through a single codebase.

This means that today you don't need to do something like learn both Kotlin and Swift to build Android and iOS apps…

And you don't need to maintain 2 separate codebases to have your mobile app available for Android and iOS users.

The hybrid approach today is the default to building mobile apps is more popular for very good reasons.

This also means that if you decide to build an educational brand, you'll probably have a much easier time if you're focusing on the hybrid approach.

Especially since React Native and Flutter are much more mature now and aren't as janky as they once were.

It's much faster to develop an app this way, and much less costly.

The only reason I'd see to even build a native app today is if:

• Your app needs ultra high performance

• Your app is within a heavily regulated industry (banking, medical, etc.)

• You already have a large native codebase

Otherwise I'd stick to the hybrid way.

Then what if you want to build an app that does video editing, graphics or animation tasks?

In that case a desktop app makes more sense to build than a mobile app.

Or what if you want to build a mobile game?

Then a game engine like Unity makes more sense to use.

I'd say reasons to build a Native mobile app are very rare these days, and most of the time you'll want to go hybrid.

This means that if you are someone that wants to have mobile app development as a high income skill, then the landscape today is much better for it — given the tools you now have access to.

This is a great choice of skill to learn with high earning potential through a job and with the flexibility to earn far more through entrepreneurship.

Plus when you're great at it, you can use AI to greatly speed up the time it takes to implement the features of your mobile app.

8. AI Engineer

Given the fact that we are currently living in the AI era, this one is a great choice.

Companies are spending absurd amounts of money trying to get ahead in the AI race, and for good reason.

We've witnessed first-hand how disruptive AI has been.

Companies like Google which years ago I couldn't imagine anyone ever competing with, suddenly went into panic mode when OpenAI's ChatGPT entered the scene.

Using Google to get information was always the norm, but it was often slow and annoying…

You'd often have to scan through multiple forums and articles until you'd finally find the information you're actually looking for.

Then came ChatGPT where you immediately get exactly the information you're looking for.

This was the first big revelation on the power of AI.

And the landscape has only continued to rapidly evolve since then.

Given the landscape and how competitive AI is today and will continue to be, there's a good reason why you can get paid a ton as a great AI Engineer.

There's reported to be high level AI Engineers at companies like OpenAI that get compensated more than $1 million per year for the work they do…

Granted that less senior roles will fall into lower 6-figures.

But in today's AI age, if you're exceptionally good then there is large earning potential here.

Plus if you can take your AI knowledge and apply it into a great AI app, then you also have the flexibility to scale your earnings very high through entrepreneurial means.

When it comes to AI apps, it's the work of an AI Engineer that's responsible for them performing great and effectively doing what they're supposed to do.

This is a very valuable skillset to have today that has high earning potential and great flexibility.

Entrepreneurship options don't even only include building your own AI apps…

You can also do things like build an educational brand around teaching AI skills — like LLM Engineering, AI Agents and how to create production-grade AI apps and set up infrastructure to host them.

This is extremely useful knowledge to share if you yourself are an experienced AI Engineer.

These are all reasons why I believe this is a great skill to dive into to earn a high income.

9. Web Developer

Finally the last high income skill will be web development.

This is especially a high income skill because of how much web development has evolved over the years.

Web development today is far more than just HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Where web development I believe really becomes a high income skill is when you learn how to build great web applications (not just static websites).

And to build web applications, that involves 3 different categories you can fall into:

• Front-end

• Back-end

• Full-stack

Front-end will be the developer that can build great interactive front facing user interfaces and build great user experiences.

Back-end will be the developer that does the behind the scenes work of building API servers, back-end services, databases, the infrastructure and basically the behind the scenes logic powering the app.

Then full-stack will be the developer that does it all — both front-end and back-end.

What's cool about back-end and full-stack is that it makes it easier to later do things like build mobile apps.

Because what is a mobile app?

You can look at it as the native front facing experience of the app…and what do you think powers the behind the scenes logic of the mobile app?

That's right, back-end development.

The real difference of course is that with front-end development you're building a client that runs in a browser, whereas with mobile app development you're building a front facing experience that launches directly within the phone and doesn't require a browser to run.

So in a way these skills have a bit of overlap.

And further there's even overlap with skills like AI Engineering if you want AI features within your app.

Web development has evolved a lot over the years and as a result web developers today have a lot more responsibilities than in the past.

This is also why today it's a great high income skill.

Not just can you earn a high income through a job setting (often with remote opportunities) — this skill is also very flexible.

You can build websites, landing pages and full blown web applications.

Then you can also apply these skills in many ways through entrepreneurship to greatly increase your earning potential.

This can involve things like offering freelance services (granted you'll probably need to learn design and copywriting skills to do this well unless you're building a web application rather than websites and landing pages).

You can build your own web applications and build a business around that.

You can also offer consulting services around your full-stack development skills to other business owners, this can include consulting around:

• Product architecture and tech strategy

• Technical audits and optimization

• Development team consulting

• Conversion-focused product strategy

• Minimum viable product (MVP) development

• Technical co-founding

• And so on

And you can even build an educational brand teaching these skills as there are lots of people that want to learn these skills and if you can effectively teach people how to build great web applications, that's incredibly useful.

So there's really a lot of options when it comes to web development, either earn a high income in a job setting or earn even more by applying it in entrepreneurship in a number of ways.

That's also why I personally decided to go with web development as my first high income skill to learn — because I loved the high earning potential and the sheer amount of flexibility you have with it.

Plus there's a lot of overlap with other high income skills on this list.

Stack on AI Engineering, and now you can build full-stack AI apps.

Stack on mobile app development, and now you can build apps that people can use both through a browser experience or through a native mobile app.

Stack on design and copywriting and now you can do things like build websites and landing pages that generate leads and sales.

This is why I personally love web development and think today it's a fantastic choice for a high income skill.

Even though this was my personal choice, that doesn't mean that it may be the right choice for you.

Any of these are great options, and if you can stack some of these skills together then they become even more powerful.

And if you can apply any of these successfully in business, then they can go from 6-figure earning potential to far beyond that.

So let's quickly recap the best high income skills to learn today:

• Copywriting

• Media buying

• Sales

• Content creation and personal branding

• Consulting

• Designer — graphic and web

• Mobile app developer

• AI Engineer

• Web developer

These are all fantastic choices if you're looking for a high income skill that is flexible in that you can also apply it in different ways that allow you to go past the earning ceiling placed on you in an employment environment.

Then last thing I want to leave you with is that all of these can go quite deep — some deeper than others.

If it's mastery you're looking for, then I'd keep in mind to not underestimate the level of depth that these skills have and the time it takes to uncover this depth.

That's why I think it's best to focus on one and gain a certain level of expertise before moving onto another…

And keep in mind that getting to a certain level of expertise may very well take much longer than you anticipate.

This is because the more you learn and uncover in each of these paths, the more it is revealed to you that you've only seen the tip of the iceberg and not everything underneath.

Once you dive deep enough you realize how much there is that you don't know.

That's why I say pick one and stick with it long enough before potentially looking to stack on another skill.

With any of these if you stick to it, you will have both a skill that can earn a high income in a job setting…

And that gives you the flexibility to apply it in different ways through business if you desire to work towards going past the earning ceiling a job places on you.

It's also fine if you do decide to pick a path that isn't on this list if you feel you resonate more with something else.

Like if what you really want is to be a doctor, don't let this list stop you from doing what you feel is your calling in life.

At the end of the day, what's most important is that you actually enjoy what you do and that it's something you gravitate more towards.

But if you're undecided, then I'd say picking a skill from the list I covered can be a great way to go.

These are all skills that don't have the downsides that some other skills have — like being less flexible in how they can be applied or being much harder to produce a lot of wealth with.

Unfortunately not all skills are created equal.

Some skills carry a lot more value in the marketplace compared to others.

And some skills are more flexible than others and can easily be applied in business in various ways — in other words, some skills give you more control over your financial life.

Next steps:

• Pick what high income skill resonates with you the most

• Stick with it until you've reached a certain level of expertise

• Apply the skill in business to earn even more if you want

• Stack together other high income skills

• After this your earning potential is only capped by your mindset, mentality, level of self-development and work ethic

I'll leave you with that, so get after it, dare to be great and stay dangerous!

Anyway, that is everything for this one. Hope you enjoyed the letter and have a fantastic rest of your day.

- Bryan