The 10 Least Stressful Six-Figure Jobs, According to Ladders
Many professionals want a six-figure salary. Fewer are willing to trade their health, relationships, and peace of mind to get one. Conventional wisdom says high pay requires relentless pressure, constant availability, and stress as the price of admission. New data from Ladders, the career platform focused on professionals earning $100,000 or more, challenges that assumption.
Six-Figure Jobs That Deliver Pay Without the Pressure
Ladders identified ten roles that offer six-figure compensation without the intense demands typical of executive leadership, investment banking, or high-pressure sales. At the top is **Director of Scientific Affairs**, with an average salary of $219,500. The position combines high-impact work with more predictable hours and less exposure to sales quotas, revenue targets, and after-hours emergencies.
The full list includes:
- Director of Scientific Affairs — $219,500
- HR Business Partner — $175,500
- Transportation Planner — $171,000
- Director of Compensation — $165,000
- Actuary — $155,000
- Senior UX Researcher — $155,000
- Director of Market Research and Insights — $155,000
- Director of Learning and Development — $149,000
- Learning and Development Analyst — $145,000
- Statistician — $103,000
Most of these roles require at least a bachelor’s degree. Some, such as actuary, demand professional certifications. A Ph.D. is often preferred for Director of Scientific Affairs, while a master’s degree can strengthen candidacy for roles like Director of Compensation.
For contrast, Ladders ranked Managing Director in Investment Banking among the most stressful positions (average $255,000). Other high-stress roles include CEO ($200,000), CFO ($175,000), COO ($175,000), and Head of Sales ($156,250). These jobs typically carry direct accountability for revenue, company performance, investor expectations, staffing decisions, and organizational crises. The higher pay often reflects not just expertise, but the emotional and operational weight of being responsible when things go wrong.
Why These Roles Are Less Stressful
“There’s a myth that if you want to break into the six-figure pay scale, you have to trade your evenings and your blood pressure for it,” says Marc Cenedella, founder of Ladders. “This list says otherwise.”
These jobs are not low-stress because they are easy. They are lower-stress because the work is technical, process-driven, and relatively insulated from other people’s emergencies. Success tends to depend on analysis, judgment, research, and clear processes rather than aggressive sales goals or constant crisis management.
A demanding role can still feel manageable when priorities stay stable, expectations are clear, and employees are not expected to respond immediately whenever something goes wrong. By contrast, even a prestigious title becomes exhausting when priorities shift daily or one executive’s emergency becomes everyone else’s problem.
Cenedella describes the common thread as “deep, technical work paced by data and process.” These positions allow professionals to focus on longer-term outcomes instead of chasing weekly targets or reacting to unpredictable fires.
Which Calm Jobs Could Grow More Stressful
A low-stress job today may not stay that way as artificial intelligence reshapes professional work. Many of the calmest roles on the list are data-driven and relatively repeatable—qualities that can also make them more vulnerable to automation.
Cenedella singles out actuaries. Their work relies heavily on statistical modeling, structured data, and pattern recognition—areas where AI already performs much of the analytical heavy lifting. “Calm today doesn’t mean calm in five years,” he notes. If AI handles more of the initial modeling, actuaries may face pressure to manage higher volumes, make faster decisions, or continually prove the value of human judgment.
Statisticians and market research professionals could face similar shifts. AI is unlikely to eliminate these roles, but it may raise productivity expectations and shrink the time allotted for thoughtful analysis.
By contrast, Director of Scientific Affairs and HR Business Partner appear more resilient. Both require trust, nuanced judgment, and communication in complex human or regulated environments. Scientific affairs leaders often operate under strict regulatory constraints, while HR Business Partners navigate conflict, culture, employee concerns, and sensitive decisions.
Senior UX Researcher sits in the middle. AI can process feedback and detect behavioral patterns, but it still struggles with knowing which questions to ask, building participant trust, or interpreting hesitation, emotion, and context.
A job may feel calm because it is repeatable or because it depends on human judgment and ambiguity. Roles in the first category face greater disruption risk; those built around trust and complexity may remain both valuable and relatively stable.
What Job Seekers Often Get Wrong
In an ideal world, people earn well, maintain sustainable work-life balance, and protect their health and family time. Cenedella argues that screening primarily for vanity signals—impressive title, salary number, or wellness benefits—often fails to reveal whether a job will feel overwhelming six months in.
Those factors matter, but they do not reliably predict daily stress. A more useful question is how quickly someone else’s emergency can become yours. Roles tied to quarterly quotas, revenue targets, client crises, or constant executive demands carry built-in pressure. So do positions where managers cannot clearly explain priorities or where goals shift weekly.
Cenedella recommends asking pointed questions in interviews:
- “Walk me through what happens when something goes wrong at 6 p.m. on a Friday. Am I expected to take the call?”
- “How often do your team’s priorities change because someone above you changes direction?”
The answers often reveal more than a company’s wellness program or vacation policy. If problems can usually wait until Monday, genuine boundaries may exist. If priorities constantly shift based on executive preference, the role is likely to become stressful regardless of the paycheck.
He also suggests asking how performance is measured, how often deadlines change, who handles emergencies, and why the position is open.
Salary and title are important outputs. Pacing, exposure, autonomy, and clarity are the inputs that shape daily experience. The best six-figure job is not simply the one with the largest number attached. It is the one that compensates people well without requiring them to sacrifice their health to earn it.