The money and rules behind your electric bill: traders, economists, regulators, lawyers, and analysts who decide what power costs and where it comes from.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Power & Natural Gas Trader: Buys and sells electricity and natural gas in fast-moving markets, betting on weather, demand, and prices. Typical pay $150k.
Energy Quantitative Analyst: Builds math models to price energy contracts and manage the risk of wild price swings. Typical pay $135k.
Energy Economist: Studies energy prices, markets, and policies to predict their effects on people and businesses. Typical pay $115k.
Power Purchase Agreement Originator: Makes deals to sell the power from wind, solar, and battery projects to big buyers like tech companies. Typical pay $145k.
Energy Regulatory Attorney: Represents utilities, energy companies, or consumers in cases about electricity rates, pipelines, and power lines. Typical pay $151k.
Public Utility Commissioner: Sits on a state commission that decides electricity and gas rates and approves new power plants and lines. Typical pay $140k.
Clean Energy Tax Credit Analyst: Works out how much federal tax credit a solar, battery or geothermal project can claim, and helps sell those credits to companies that want lower tax bills. Typical pay $115k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Power Market Analyst: Tracks and forecasts electricity prices and market rules for traders, developers, and utilities. Typical pay $100k.
Energy Policy Analyst: Researches energy laws and programs and recommends what governments should do. Typical pay $90k.
Utility Rate Analyst: Calculates what customers should pay for electricity, gas, or water, and defends those numbers to regulators. Typical pay $90k.
Energy Consultant: Advises utilities, companies, and governments on energy strategy, projects, and markets. Typical pay $101k.
Carbon Credit Verifier: Checks whether carbon offset projects (like forest protection or methane capture) really cut the emissions they claim. Typical pay $80k.
Power Scheduler: Schedules exactly how much power moves where, hour by hour, so deals made by traders actually happen. Typical pay $82k.
Commercial Energy Broker: Helps businesses shop for cheaper electricity and gas contracts. Typical pay $60k.
Utility Consumer Advocate: Works for a state office that argues for everyday customers when power, gas and water companies ask regulators to raise their prices. Typical pay $85k.
Starter: fastest way in
Community Energy Organizer: Helps neighborhoods get access to solar, efficiency upgrades, and lower energy bills. Typical pay $50k.
Energy Reporter: Reports on energy markets, climate policy, utilities, and new technologies. Typical pay $52k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.