37 Telecommuting Jobs You May Not Have Realized Were Possible

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Fairygodboss

Updated: 12/15/2017

For those interested in telecommuting jobs either because you want more work-life balance or because you want more control over your personal life, you may rightly suspect that there are certain kinds and lines of work that lend themselves better to remote working.

Despite great advances in technology and a shifting workplace culture that permits flexible working, or remote and telecommuting work, it still seems like most jobs are traditionally set to be onsite, in an office or in another similar setting.

What is a telecommuting job?

A telecommuting job is just what it sounds like: a position that allows you to work from home and communicate by phone, video conferencing and email.

Many telecommuting and remote jobs are not ever listed on job sites because many are negotiated by full-time employees who want to work remotely or part-time employees who convince their managers and employers to allow them to work from home and telecommute. However, if your manager or company doesn’t allow these options, you may have to look elsewhere if you’re trying to find a telecommuting job or figuring out how to work from home.

What is an example of telecommuting?

Many instances of telecommuting exist. We did some research about which telecommuting jobs exist and were surprised to find that they span every industry—sofware engineering, graphic design and even law, to name a few— and are surprising in how diverse they can be. While we expected that certain roles would require an on-site presence (e.g. doctors and construction work), many other jobs we traditionally think of as requiring you to “be there” (e.g. teaching) can be done via telecommuting.

What we noticed when we explored telecommuting jobs is that they are also quite varied in terms of job level, seniority and experience. They are certainly not all entry-level, nor low-paying jobs and many in fact, require a few to several years of experience.

What are the best telecommuting jobs, and how much do they pay?

We scoured the internet for job listings sites that feature legitimate work-from-home jobs and telecommuting jobs and found these were the 25 highest-paying most commonly listed types of telecommuting jobs (in alphabetical order). Salary reflects the median annual pay according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics unless otherwise specified and can vary widely.

Accounting jobs (e.g. book-keeper, controller): $69,350
Architecture jobs: $78,470
Attorney / legal jobs: $119,250
Auditing jobs: $69,350
Business operations jobs: $70,010
Claims processing jobs: $64,690
Consulting jobs: depends on specialty (management consultants: $82,450)
Data analyst/analysis jobs: $58,585 (PayScale)
Financial lending jobs (e.g. loan officer): $64,660
Insurance underwriting jobs: $69,760
IT / architecture jobs: $139,220
Marketing jobs (e.g. telemarketing, digital marketing): $129,380
Market research jobs: $63,230
Nursing jobs (e.g. nurse practitioner, nurse hotlines, screening): $70,000 (RN)
Recruiting / HR jobs: $60,350
Physician assistant jobs: $104,860
Psychiatry jobs: $208,000
Product management jobs: $99,709 (PayScale)
Project management jobs: $72,165 (PayScale)
Software development jobs: $103,560
Sales jobs (e.g. field sales, account executive, relationships manager, business development): depends on specialty (wholesale and manufacturing: $60,340)
Teaching jobs (e.g. online course instructor, test prep instructor, professorships): $76,000
UX design jobs: $72,871 (PayScale)
Website design jobs: $67,990
Writing, journalism and editorial jobs (e.g. bloggers, editors, content managers, copywriting): $61,820

Now that you can see that many types of professions may lend themselves to remote working, where do you begin to find a telecommuting job?

Where do you find telecommuting jobs?

We have previously written about the places you can find remote jobs. Many mainstream job-listing sites have places where you can search for telecommuting jobs and remote work but we found 34 places online where you can find and filter specifically for telecommuting jobs.

Here are some serious pointers to getting a little more work-life balance out of your career:

If you like your job but want to start working from home

If you’re mostly happy with your job but you’d prefer to get your work done at home, think about what would change if you weren’t going into your office each day. Are you constantly collaborating with your coworkers or having meetings with clients while at work? If so, that doesn’t mean working from home is impossible — but before you raise the issue with your boss, you’ll need to have a proposal for how you can successfully remain part of the team even if you’re not present. Whether you commit to being on Skype during work hours or you plan regular phone calls, make sure it doesn’t seem like you’ll be any less reachable.

If you’re specifically looking for a new work-from-home opportunity

If you’re thinking of leaving your job and you’re interested in a more flexible arrangement, consider what kinds of companies and jobs might offer what you want. Oftentimes computer/IT jobs and arts-related jobs like writing, graphic design, social media jobs and photography can easily — and perhaps even more productively — be done at home.

If you’re interviewing and want to suggest/request working from home

If you’re in the process of interviewing for a job and you want to find out whether it would be possible to work from home, do your homework before raising the question. Check the company’s website/careers page to see if they have any kind of information or description regarding flexible work. Go a step beyond that and make sure to check out employee reviews; even if a company boasts flexibility to seem more desirable, they might not actually be so keen on the idea.

Try to get a sense of your interviewer and the office culture to see whether working from home seems feasible before suggesting it. To broach the subject, you can also try to find out how much employees tend to be in touch after work hours/what the typical schedule is like.

Final tips

If you're still debating whether working from home is the right move for you, consider the pros and cons of freelance, remote and part-time jobs. You may also be worried about avoiding distractions and remaining productive while working from home, and we get that. That's why we've put together a list of 8 tips for effectively working at home.

A word of caution: don’t sacrifice everything to work at home. But to find some telecommuting jobs on Fairygodboss, filter your job search here!

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