SegmentNextCareers
Nine careers have their own page in this folder, and the first useful thing to notice is that they are not all the same kind of thing. Most are promotion ladders that branch once. One is an active job you play a shift of. One is not a ladder at all: it is a business you buy, staff and run. Sorting them that way tells you more about what a career will do to your Sim's week than any salary table does, so that is how this page is arranged.
The Nine At A Glance
| Career | Shape | Branches open at | Top pay | Skills it wants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astronaut | Branching ladder | Level 8 | §3,717 a day, Interstellar Smuggler | Rocket Science, Logic, Fitness |
| Business | Branching ladder | Level 7 | §3,248 a day, Angel Investor | Logic, Charisma |
| Social Media | Branching ladder | Level 4 | §3,171 a day, Spin Doctor | Charisma, Writing, Mischief |
| Athlete | Branching ladder | Level 5 | §3,000 a day, Mr. or Mrs. Solar System | Charisma and Fitness, at stated levels |
| Doctor | Active career, no branch | Never | §2,800 a day, Chief of Staff | Handiness, plus the Focused mood |
| Salary Person | Branching ladder, degree gated | Level 5 | §2,485 a day, Head of Department | Writing, Logic |
| Culinary | Branching ladder | Level 6 | §2,460 a day, Celebrity Chef | Cooking, Mixology, then Gourmet Cooking or Charisma |
| Conservationist | Branching ladder, paid hourly | Level 7 | §340 an hour, Chief Sustainability Officer | Logic, then Charisma or Fitness |
| Vet | A business you own | Not applicable | Whatever the clinic earns | Veterinarian skill |
The Ladders, And Where They Fork
Seven of the nine are ordinary promotion ladders, and the only structural difference between them is how long you get before the game makes you choose. Social Media forks at level 4, earlier than anything else here, which means committing before your Sim has really started. Astronaut holds out until level 8. In every case the ranks below the fork are shared, so there is nothing to plan: raise the skills, take the promotions, and decide when asked.
The branch choices themselves are rarely close. At the Social Media fork, the corporate side starts on double the influencer's wage and ends §1,011 a day clear of it. Interstellar Smuggler beats Space Ranger by §763. Environmental Manager leads Marine Biologist at every rank. Two are genuinely contested: the Culinary branches trade the lead twice before Chef pulls §490 clear, and the Athlete branches do the same before Bodybuilder finishes §1,002 ahead, which means a Sim who will not reach level 10 should take the other one.
The Two That Are Not Ladders
The Doctor career is an active one, so you follow your Sim into the hospital and play the shift. Promotion depends on filling two of three segments of a work performance meter, and the way to fill them is correct diagnoses, which is a puzzle rather than a grind: thirteen symptoms spread across eight illnesses with enough overlap that guessing costs you the shift.
The Vet career is further from the model still, because there are no ranks to be promoted through. You buy a lot, furnish it with a podium, an examination table and eventually a surgery station, hire staff, set your own treatment prices and take whatever the clinic makes. Our guide puts the bare minimum at §6,000 and recommends rather more. Progress is measured in perk points earned from daily tasks and in the Veterinarian skill, which unlocks the ability to soothe a distressed animal at level 5 and makes every examination after that easier.
The Degree Question
Two of these careers involve a university degree and they treat it differently. Salary Person gates its branches outright: the Supervisor side wants a Communications degree and the Expert side a Computer Science degree, so the choice is made at university rather than at level 5. Our Doctor guide raises the same pack in a softer form, noting a biology degree as the route in for players who own it. Every other career on this page is open to a Sim who never enrolled.
How Much Of This You Can Skip
All of it, as our career cheats guide sets out. Once the console is open, careers.promote followed by the job's code word lifts a Sim one rank per command, and the code word is not always the name on the tin: the Athlete career answers to Athletic, Social Media runs together as SocialMedia, and several others hide behind longer internal names. The same guide covers joining and quitting a job and retiring on a pension, and our career items guide handles the reward objects, which can all be unlocked in build mode with a single line rather than earned between levels 2 and 6.
Where These Nine Sit In The Whole Game
The game has far more jobs than this folder covers in depth, counting sixteen in the base game, around twenty five more across the expansions, the after-school activities for students and a pile of community-made careers on top. Our highest paying jobs guide ranks the ten best earners across all of them, and three of the pages above appear in that list: Astronaut's smuggler branch at fourth, Business's investor branch at seventh and Social Media's public relations branch at tenth. Acting tops it at §9,800 a day for a one hour day, which no page here comes close to.
Career Questions
What is the highest paying career in The Sims 4?
Of the nine here, the Astronaut career's Interstellar Smuggler branch at §3,717 a day, though it works the longest shift of the game's top earners at nine hours. Across the whole game, our highest paying jobs list puts Acting first.
Which career is easiest to level?
Culinary, since its two skills are the ones a Sim raises anyway while feeding the household. The Athlete career is the most predictable, since it states the Charisma and Fitness level each of its first four promotions requires.
Can two Sims share a career?
Yes, and in the Vet career it is closer to a requirement than an option, since a clinic runs better with hired staff than with one Sim doing every examination. What each shortcut in the game saves you is set out on our cheats and careers guide, and the Sims 4 hub puts the whole folder in reading order.