High Paying Low Stress Jobs in the UK: 10 With CV Lines
By Mustafa Tarabya, founder of CVBooster · Published · Updated
10 min read
High paying jobs with low stress do exist in the UK, and in September 2026 they are almost all technical desk roles with a professional body attached. The benchmark to beat is the Office for National Statistics figure: "Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £39,039 in April 2025." Ten jobs below clear that at the experienced end while the National Careers Service records their typical week as 36 to 42 hours, largely inside office hours. Every salary range and every hours figure comes from the government's own job profiles, quoted with its source, and each job gets the CV line that gets the interview. Written by Mustafa Tarabya, who hired for his own company, read every application himself and now writes CVBooster's guides.
No job is stress-free. What these ten share is predictability: set hours, a defined scope, and a body of rules to work inside rather than a target to chase.
The line that gets you read for these jobs
Quiet technical jobs are shortlisted on evidence of accuracy, not enthusiasm. One line near the top of the CV does most of the work.
The opening line that clears the median, any job on this list (48 words)
PROFILE
Part-qualified insurance underwriter (CII IF1 and IF2 passed, Diploma in progress) with three years on commercial property risk. Assessed 1,100 claims at Havenbrook before moving to underwriting, referred 38 cases above authority in 2025 with 36 accepted as presented, and have never missed a quarterly referral audit.
The ten jobs, and what each pays
| Job | Starter to experienced (a year) | Typical hours a week | Entry route | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actuary | £32,000 to £70,000 | 37 to 42, 8am to 6pm | Degree then a graduate actuarial scheme, or an apprenticeship | National Careers Service, Actuary |
| Quantity surveyor | £26,000 to £70,000 | 37 to 40, occasional evenings | RICS-accredited degree, apprenticeship or graduate scheme | National Careers Service, Quantity surveyor |
| Insurance underwriter | £27,000 to £65,000 | 37 to 40, 8am to 6pm | Degree, college course, or an apprenticeship worked towards | National Careers Service, Insurance underwriter |
| Licensed conveyancer | £25,000 to £65,000 | 36 to 40, 9am to 5pm | CLC-approved qualifications or a conveyancing technician apprenticeship | National Careers Service, Licensed conveyancer |
| Audiologist | £32,000 to £57,000 | 37 to 40, 8am to 6pm | NHS Practitioner Training Programme degree, or apprenticeship | National Careers Service, Audiologist |
| Dental hygienist | £32,000 to £57,000 | 37 to 40, 8am to 6pm on a rota | GDC-approved diploma or degree | National Careers Service, Dental hygienist |
| Technical author | £27,000 to £50,000 | 37 to 40, occasional evenings | Degree in a technical subject, or direct application | National Careers Service, Technical author |
| Archivist | £23,000 to £45,000 | 38 to 40, 8am to 6pm | Degree plus postgraduate training, or apprenticeship | National Careers Service, Archivist |
| Town planner | £26,000 to £45,000 | 37 to 40, some evening meetings | RTPI-accredited degree or apprenticeship | National Careers Service, Town planner |
| Librarian | £25,000 to £40,000 | 36 to 40, some shifts | CILIP-accredited degree or postgraduate qualification | National Careers Service, Librarian |
Bookkeeper and accounting technician both sit at £24,000 to £35,000 on a Monday to Friday week, so neither clears the median at the top end. They are the entry ramp to the finance roles above, not the destination.
How the pay and hours numbers were checked
Three rules, applied to every row.
- The national benchmark is the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, April 2025, which puts median gross annual pay for full-time employees at £39,039 and median weekly pay at £766.60.
- Each salary range is the "Average salary (a year)" band published on that job's own National Careers Service profile, copied as printed, starter to experienced.
- "Low stress" here means the hours the same profile records, not an opinion. Nothing in this list has a published typical week over 42 hours, and only the librarian and dental hygienist rotas involve shifts. Work-related stress has a proper definition and a risk-assessment framework behind it, set out in the HSE Management Standards, and no salary table can measure it for you.
What the table cannot tell you is variance. A quantity surveyor on a contentious project and one on a framework of school refurbishments earn the same and have very different Tuesdays.
Actuary: the highest ceiling on the list
The route is long and the work is quiet. Most employers "will look for a degree with a high level of mathematics", and the National Careers Service actuary profile puts the band at £32,000 starter to £70,000 experienced for a 37 to 42 hour week between 8am and 6pm.
Actuarial analyst, CV summary and skills, career changer from teaching (103 words)
PROFILE
Maths teacher of nine years moving into actuarial work, part-qualified with IFoA (CM1 and CS1 passed, CB1 sitting April 2027). Daily work in probability, mortality tables and exam statistics for a 240-pupil cohort, plus four years running the department's data reporting.
TECHNICAL
R (survival analysis, GLMs) · Excel to array formulas and Power Query · SQL joins and aggregation · IFoA CM1, CS1 · Actuarial reserving basics, self-taught through the IFoA core reading
WHY THIS MOVES
Modelled the school's 2024 to 2026 staffing budget, including pension employer contributions, and the forecast came in within £4,100 of outturn on a £1.9m payroll.
Quantity surveyor and insurance underwriter: the two widest ladders
Both top out at £65,000 or more with no requirement to manage people, and both accept an apprenticeship route rather than a degree. The underwriter profile records a 37 to 40 hour week between 8am and 6pm; the surveyor profile allows occasional evenings and weekends.
Assistant quantity surveyor, experience bullets, first commercial role (83 words)
Site Administrator, Marden Construction, Leeds. June 2023 to present
- Priced and issued 140 subcontractor payment applications a year against the NEC3 schedule, with two queries raised at final account across two years. - Ran the monthly cost report for a £3.4m school extension, tracking variations against a £210,000 provisional sum. - Took the Level 4 Construction Quantity Surveying Technician apprenticeship alongside the role, completing 12 of 14 modules. - Measured groundworks quantities from drawings for three tenders, two of which were won.
Insurance underwriter, CV skills block, moving from claims handling (85 words)
UNDERWRITING SKILLS
Commercial combined risk assessment · Referral criteria and authority limits · Loss ratio reading · Broker relationship handling · Acturis and Open GI
EVIDENCE
Handled 1,100 commercial property claims over three years at Havenbrook, which taught me which risks actually turn into losses: escape of water on unoccupied premises, and flat roofs over 15 years old.
Completed CII IF1 and IF2 in 2026, working towards the Diploma in Insurance.
Referred 38 cases above my claims authority in 2025 with 36 accepted as presented.
Licensed conveyancer: the one with no degree requirement
The licensed conveyancer profile lists the entry route as an apprenticeship or "professional qualifications approved by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC)", with a 9am to 5pm week and an experienced band of £65,000. It is the highest paid job on this list that a determined school leaver can reach without university.
Conveyancing technician, CV opening, no degree (86 words)
PROFILE
Conveyancing paralegal with four years on residential files, working towards the CLC Level 4 Diploma in Conveyancing Law and Practice (four of six units passed). Ran 60 to 70 live files at a time under a licensed conveyancer's supervision.
FILE WORK
- Handled Land Registry AP1 and TR1 submissions, with 412 applications lodged in 2025 and nine requisitions raised. - Managed the search pack ordering and chased 40 leasehold management packs a month. - Completed SDLT returns for 180 transactions without a late filing.
Audiologist and dental hygienist: quiet clinical work
Both sit at £32,000 to £57,000 and both keep clinic hours. Audiology entry is the NHS Practitioner Training Programme, "a 3-year training scheme", and hygienists need "a higher education diploma or degree approved by the General Dental Council".
Dental hygienist, CV profile and clinical block, newly qualified (81 words)
PROFILE
GDC-registered dental hygienist (registration 291447), qualified July 2026 from the Diploma in Dental Hygiene at the University of Portsmouth. Comfortable on a 20-minute recall list and looking for a practice that runs a stable Monday to Friday rota.
CLINICAL
- Completed 180 supervised periodontal treatments during training, including 26 patients on a stabilisation pathway. - Took and reported 140 sets of BPE scores. - Delivered oral health education sessions to two primary school year groups, 58 children in total.
Technical author, archivist and librarian: the writing and records group
These three are the quietest on the list, and the archivist and librarian bands trade pay for that. A technical author "usually" needs a degree in a subject like science, computing, journalism or engineering, and can also apply directly with a portfolio.
Technical author, CV evidence block, moving from support desk (78 words)
WRITING AND DOCUMENTATION
- Rewrote 74 support articles for a warehouse management system, cutting repeat tickets on the same three topics from 38 a month to 11. - Wrote the installation guide and the API reference for two product releases, in DITA, with a review cycle agreed with the engineering lead. - Built the style guide the support team now uses, covering terminology, screenshots and the six error-message patterns. - Tools: MadCap Flare, Oxygen XML, Git, Snagit, Confluence.
Archivist, CV profile, postgraduate route (69 words)
PROFILE
Archivist with an MA in Archives and Records Management (UCL, 2025) and two years cataloguing a county record office's 19th-century estate collections. Registered member of the Archives and Records Association, working towards Registration.
CATALOGUING
- Catalogued 3,100 items to ISAD(G) across eight accessions, including a 1,400-piece solicitors' deposit with no prior listing. - Ran the reading room two days a week, handling 340 researcher enquiries in 2025.
Town planner and bookkeeper: the two realistic first steps
Town planning is the one to take if you want a chartered route with pay in the forties and mostly daytime hours, with "some evening meetings" for committee. Bookkeeping is the one to take if you need to be earning within six months: the profile lists a college course, an apprenticeship or applying directly, and a Monday to Friday week.
Bookkeeper, full CV skills and evidence section, self-taught entry (85 words)
BOOKKEEPING
AAT Level 2 Certificate in Accounting, passed 2026, currently on Level 3.
- Kept the books for three sole traders and one limited company alongside a retail job, covering 18 months of VAT returns with no late submissions. - Reconciled bank feeds monthly in Xero and QuickBooks Online, clearing an inherited suspense account of £11,400 across 61 transactions. - Ran payroll for a nine-person company through BrightPay, including pension auto-enrolment assessments. - Produced month-end management accounts by working day five for the limited company.
The three switches that fail
- Applying for the £70,000 end of a band with none of the qualifications the band assumes. Actuaries reach it after the IFoA exams, not before.
- Calling a job low stress in the covering letter. Say predictable, defined, or process-driven.
- Ignoring the professional body. Naming your membership number or exam progress is the fastest credibility on the page.
Work through how to change careers and the career change CV, then run the advert through tailoring your CV to the job. If salary is the whole reason for the move, read how to negotiate salary before the first interview.
Frequently asked questions
What are high paying jobs?
In UK terms, any job paying above the ONS median of £39,039 a year for full-time employees in April 2025. On this list the actuary, quantity surveyor, insurance underwriter, licensed conveyancer, audiologist, dental hygienist and technical author bands all reach well beyond it at the experienced end.
What is a high paying job with no degree?
Licensed conveyancer is the strongest on this list. The National Careers Service records an experienced band of £65,000 a year and an entry route through an apprenticeship or CLC-approved professional qualifications. Insurance underwriting and quantity surveying also both list apprenticeship routes with bands reaching £65,000 and £70,000.
What a high paying job without degree?
Look for jobs with a professional body that examines members directly, because those bodies do not require a degree to sit their exams. Conveyancing (CLC), insurance (CII), bookkeeping and accounting (AAT) and surveying (RICS technician routes) all work this way, and all publish their own syllabus.
What are good high paying jobs?
Good here means the pay holds without the hours rising. Judge a job by three published facts: the salary band, the typical weekly hours, and whether a professional body sets the standards. The ten profiles above give all three.
What is a high paying job without a degree?
An apprenticeship into a regulated profession. The conveyancing technician and the Level 4 construction quantity surveying technician routes both lead to bands of £65,000 or more on the National Careers Service profiles, and both pay you while you qualify rather than charging you tuition.
What is a good high paying job?
One where your CV can prove the work with numbers. Every example above names a volume, a value or an error rate, which is what separates a candidate for a £45,000 archivist post from an applicant who has listed duties.
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