A list of high-demand international jobs

This job is global
Photo by Vaya

If you search for the "STEM" on this Web site, you'll find I've referenced it several times before. It's an acronym which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine. While there are plenty of opportunities for unskilled or younger would-be expats, for people who already have an established career, are considering a university degree, or have a family, teaching English in Thailand, while exciting, might not pay as much (note: South Korea sometimes pays TEFL teachers reasonably well). So what jobs are in demand abroad?


The BBC has an excellent report about in-demand jobs for global migrants. They list the jobs that countries are seeking and which countries are seeking them. And what jobs do they list?

• Accountants
• Audiologists and speech therapists
• Chefs 
• Chemical engineers 
• Civil engineering professionals 
• Dentists 
• Doctors 
• Electrical engineering professionals 
• Electronics engineers 
• Industrial and production engineers 
• IT database and network professionals 
• IT developers and programmers 
• IT engineers and analysts 
• Mechanical engineers 
• Mining and petroleum engineers 
• Nurses           
• Pharmacists 
• Physiotherapists 
• Psychologists 
• Radiographers

You'll immediately notice that most of these are, in fact, STEM professions. These are high-demand professions which, unlike people with degrees in literature, history, art, and so on, immediately add clear monetary value to an economy. That is not to say that the other degrees are bad, but they're not as useful when you want to move abroad.

It's interesting to note that while most of the above require university degrees, the IT professions (and chefs) often don't. If you can teach yourself how to program, manage a database or understand networking, you can not only gain a well-paying job at home, you have a much better chance of getting a job abroad.

I've already written about one strategy to learn how to program for free. Combine that with our five-part how to get a work permit series and you're on your way to a well-paying career in a foreign country.

If you already have IT skills, don't forget that we have jobs in Europe for you. We're also actively working on finding more companies willing to sponsor work permits and relocation. There's been enough interest that we're setting up a company to handle this. We'll have more information in the future.