If you are doing research on career options and are trying to figure out what subjects to study, a good place to do some homework are The Telegraph, Financial Times and Guardian newspapers from the UK. They regularly publish stories on the top job sectors and salaries.

Of course, if you are in Pakistan, you could say that data on British jobs really should not be any barometer for choices to be made in our economy. We agree. However, the British job market is worth looking at for ideas as to what jobs might be worth pursuing.

On Monday, The Telegraph published a story on the top 20 firms that pay the highest salaries in the UK, according to a jobs website called Glassdoor.

The biggest sectors are financial services and technology. The highest number of job openings were in the tech sector. This was followed by IT and then healthcare.

Data analysts, software engineers are in high demand. Cyber security employees are getting the biggest raises. Security architects are also doing well.

Fresh graduates in the UK are being offered £5,000 more than they normally would, fresh out of university, according to recruiters, The Telegraph has reported.

If you are looking for university options, try checking out The Guardian’s university rankings.

And if you are specifically interested in business degrees, the Financial Times does a more detailed ranking, with expected salary ranges once you graduate.

The World Bank did a study on the job market in Pakistan. And while it is two years old, it gives a fairly good idea of what is happening in this economy.

Here are some key takeaways:

• You can get a better quality job by moving cities or going abroad. More and more Pakistanis are moving between cities, mostly to capitals as the census proved.
• In Pakistan 208 million people rely on only about 46 million earners (which we think creates immense pressure on families)
• You earn more if your education level goes up. In 2017, men with a postsecondary education earned about 8 times more than those with a primary education
• Using simple technology—mobile phone—is strongly linked to making a profit for self-employed Pakistanis
• in 2015 Pakistanis who left home earned on average three times as much as what they earned at home, irrespective of the level of education

Digital jobs According to the World Bank, the gig economy has grown in Pakistan. The global average hourly rate is US$21 and on average people work for 36 hours per week according to a Payoneer Freelancer Income Survey in 2015. In Pakistan, freelancers generally work for 34 hours per week and types of jobs include IT and programming; design and multimedia; writing and translation; and sales and marketing. The hourly rates for these jobs are between US$17 and US$23.4