If you’re ready to be happier at work and get paid more, one career might be the perfect fit.
Some 85 percent of certified financial professionals say they are highly fulfilled by their career, citing stability and work-life balance as two top factors in their happiness, according to a survey of 1,624 industry professionals published Thursday by the Certified Financial Professional Board.
Of that 85 percent, 54 percent said their fulfillment was “very high,” while 31 percent said it was “somewhat” high.
“This report reflects what CFP professionals already know: financial planning is a career that offers both purpose and prosperity,” CFP Board CEO K. Dane Snowden said in a statement.
Median pay for financial planners with a CFP designation was $195,000 in 2025, 11 percent higher than financial planners without the designation.
The board’s fulfillment metrics are within the range of other job studies. Some 77 percent of financial advisors report high job satisfaction, according to data from compensation and data site PayScale.com. Just over 80 percent of financial advisors reported job satisfaction in 2023, a survey from FlexShares found.
Some 77 percent of financial advisors reported high job satisfaction, according to data from compensation and data site PayScale.com.
Just over 80 percent of financial advisors reported job satisfaction in 2023, a 2021 survey from FlexShares found.
Those figures put financial advising’s job satisfaction above the national average – 74 percent of American workers either love or like their jobs, a 2025 study from polling firm YouGov found.
Overall satisfaction was split into two categories: 35 percent said they loved their job and 39 percent said they like their job but don’t love it.
On the opposite end of the happiness spectrum, only 41 percent of parking lot attendants said they were highly satisfied at work, and only 5 percent said the job gave them a high sense of meaning.
Whether a worker is satisfied or miserable, they face a tough job market where companies are keeping their employees and not hiring new ones, accounting firm KPMB found in a June study.
“Those who have jobs are clinging to them, while those without are left wanting,” KPMG noted. “The result is a sense of being frozen or left in a sort of labor market purgatory.”
That being said, job numbers released Friday from the Department of Labor revealed employers hired more than 170,000 people in June, double the expectations, The Hill reported. March and April saw a combined 93,000 hirings.
May’s numbers seemed to make Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long optimistic.
“This is encouraging news for job seekers and for the U.S. economy,” Long told The Hill. “The labor market has stabilized and is showing early signs of a genuine rebound.”
