The top 5 best paid driving jobs

By: Drivers staff
Date: Saturday, 31. July 2010

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Some jobs pay more because few can do them, some because few are willing to do them and some due to a combination of both. We decided to put together a list of the top 5 best paid driving jobs around the world, from Ice Road truckers in Alaska to convoy truck drivers in Iraq.

1. Ice Road Truckers: truck drivers willing and able to take on the job of the Ice Road Trucker will have to face a 414 mile route, 75% of which is north of the Arctic Circle. They will battle extremely hazardous conditions, frequent storms, occasional ‘white outs’ and temperatures reaching -40 degrees Celsius. If the seemingly impossible challenge of the job doesn’t tempt you in itself, then maybe the salary of $120,000+ for a 3 month season will!

2. Dump truck driver in the mining industry: “Mining jobs and the mining industry is the highest paid industry in Australia ... within the many mining jobs available in the industry, one of the most sought after is that of Truck Driver on a mine site.” [source: jobs.com.au] Driving one of the enormous dump trucks used in the Australian mines (up to 340 tonnes) is probably one of the few jobs in this industry that requires little or no physical labor and is therefore equally sought after by both men and women. Annual salary for this job is in the region of $100,000.

3. Truck driver in Iraq: Driving a truck in Iraq is a job that pays particularly well, from $125,000 up to a possible $250,000 per year. The obscenely high pay rates are for obvious reasons, the risks range from terrorist attacks to kidnapping. “Criss-crossing Iraq, the hundreds of civilian truck drivers who form a "shadow army", hauling food and supplies to military bases, are a tempting target for attacks.” [source: cbsnews.com]

4. NASCAR Driver: We just had to throw this one in, although definitely more on the ‘few can do’ rather than ‘few willing to do’ end of the scale! The top NASCAR drivers in the US earn in the tens of millions, between winnings, sponsorship and endorsements. In 2009 NASCAR’s highest-paid driver was Dale Earnhardt Jr. who reportedly earned $30 million. Get your application in now!

5. Test driver: Test driving cars is a full-time job for a lucky few but test driving a luxury car like the Bugatti is down to one lucky, and very talented man - Pierre-Henri Raphanel. The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 is the fastest production car in the world today. Raphanel is responsible for test driving Bugatti car models, pushing them to their very limits to see what they can do. We did try to find out what Raphanel earned but didn’t come up with anything conclusive so this particular inclusion is based on the (fairly safe) assumption that Raphanel is well compensated for his days of toiling behind the wheel of the fastest road car on earth!

This top 5 list gives you a glimpse into the types of jobs that are out there for those who want to drive for a living. We will look at jobs such as these in more depth in later articles so bookmark our homepage or sign up for our newsletter and keep informed!

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