What Are The Most Enjoyable Careers? Top 12 Fun Jobs

Fun jobs give you satisfaction, let you harness your skills and interests, and couple good work-life balance with job security. Here are some of the most fun jobs that tick all these important boxes.

Australians spend an average of over three years in any one job; and a career can last for many years longer. It makes sense to spend all this time doing an enjoyable job that will allow you to enjoy leisure and family time too.

Common reasons people give for wanting a career change include feelings of burnout and exhaustion from a stressful job — and boredom. Pivoting into a fun job is all about pursuing the opposite: work that’s lower stress and more interesting.

A fun job obviously involves performing tasks you like. Maybe it turns your hobby or side hustle into a salary you can live off, or gives you interesting stories to tell people at parties about what you get up to eight hours a day.

But fun jobs aren’t all tasting ice-cream (an actual job), or playing video games (also a real thing people actually do). It’s also important that your job gives you the security and freedom needed for a fun lifestyle. Fun jobs mix low-stress, enjoyable tasks with job security, good pay, and work satisfaction. Fun jobs also allow you to gain experience to progress in your career, allowing for future pay rises and employment.

Job types that get the balance right are clustered into two categories, “designers” and “generators”.

Fun designer jobs involve creative expression, and satisfying problem-solving. There’s a high level of freedom, including the possibility of self-employment. People working in these fields are passionate about what they do. These creative jobs are most enjoyable when they pay well and are in high demand. Some technology jobs, as well, allow for creative expression and tend to be secure – some even allow you to earn over $100k without a uni degree.

Generator jobs require interacting with other people, usually in industries like hospitality, retail, leisure, travel, and sales. These jobs are very much in demand. They’re most fun where they pay well, allow for freedom, and where you get to have pleasant, interesting interactions with new people.

You could have the greatest product on the planet, but if nobody knows how to use it, it’ll fail. UX designers think about this User eXperience: making products, software, websites, events, or services as intuitive, engaging, efficient, and as fun as possible. It’s a creative and complicated area of work, fusing new ideas with insights from psychology, business, market research, design, and technology.

No formal qualifications are required but short courses and diploma studies are available. UX Designers will need a portfolio of work to apply for jobs.

Thinking about becoming a UX designer? Learn about these creative, fulfilling careers today!

Interior design is all about making spaces functional and beautiful. Designers work with clients to build an aesthetic for the space, selecting colour schemes, furniture, and decorative items. Each space – whether it be someone’s home, or a corporate or organisational space, or a utilitarian space like a commercial kitchen – is different, allowing you to work on something new with every project.

Qualifications in interior design such as a diploma or bachelor’s degree are highly regarded.

Interested in interior design? Find out what you need to thrive in an interior design career and make a living off your own creativity.

Event Planners help people celebrate important occasions like weddings, launches, birthday parties, conferences, fundraisers, and festivals. There are many details involved in planning events: figuring out catering, the venue, music and entertainment, advertising and marketing, ticketing, name cards, goodie bags, and so much more. Event planners thrive on to do lists and add unique, creative flairs as they go along. This job is fun for those who get a kick out of seeing all their organisational work come to fruition with a memorable event.

No formal qualifications are needed, but courses in event management, hospitality, PR, or communications are relevant.

Are you a problem-solver, an organisation expert and a quick decision-maker? Event planning could be the perfect industry for you. Find out how you can make it happen by following these seven simple steps.

Many of us will spend our lives on social media anyway, so why not get paid for it? Social media has become increasingly important for all businesses and organisations to interact with and inform their community. A social media manager will create posts and other content on behalf of their organisation, manage ads and moderate and answer comments. They’ll be constantly upskilling to get greater views and engagement, ensuring their memes are fresh, and that they know the ins and outs of every platform relevant to their audience.

No formal qualifications are required but a background in communications, marketing, and social media specifically would be useful.

With social media fast becoming a leading platform for brand awareness worldwide, we look at becoming a Social Media Manager, what it takes and where it can take you.

Outdoor Adventure Guides help people cross life goals off their bucket list. You could be teaching skiing, diving, bungee jumping, paragliding, swimming with dolphins, white water rafting, or any number of fun activities. You’ll be meeting people from across the world at their most exhilarated, out in the fresh air.

These jobs sometimes require instructor qualifications, and first aid, and always require strong skills and experience in the activity you’d be guiding people through. Training in travel and/or outdoor recreation may be well-regarded.

Do you want your next career to bring a new adventure every day? Learn everything you need to know about becoming a tour guide in Australia.

As more of our lives move online, data security is increasingly important. Ethical hackers have the tech skills to break security protocols, but they do it for the common good. When ethical hackers point out where the weaknesses are, tech companies, government organisations, nonprofits, and other organisations can strengthen them, reducing their risk of falling victim to a less-than-ethical hacker. Ethical hacking is great for people who love solving logic problems. Every day they use their skills and creativity to discover vulnerabilities that nobody has found yet.

Ethical hackers will have good programming skills, and knowledge of cyber security.

Customer-facing roles can be tricky, but maybe less so when there’s a relaxing bottle of wine involved. Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of wine and our tourism industry provides a host of employment opportunities for wine lovers: you could be a sommelier (a restaurant’s wine expert), or have another hospitality role such as a restaurant worker in one of our famous wine regions. A typical day might involve offering food and wine suggestions, guiding wine tastings, and building regional wine knowledge.

These roles require no formal education, but a true passion for and great knowledge of wine is essential. Qualifications in hospitality, viticulture, and tourism are useful.

If you love wine, travel, and meeting new people, a career as a sommelier might be for you!

Architects and building designers are both involved in designing or significantly renovating residential and commercial buildings. They put together plans and drawings for projects and help their clients budget for their new building by getting quotes for materials and labour. These fields allow you to imagine and plan new buildings, making them both beautiful and practical.

Architecture requires considerable training (5 years, leading to a Master of Architecture). Requirements for building designers are variable, depending on state legislation, and may require license or a diploma that takes between 18 months to 3 years.

The role of a graphic designer is to communicate clearly through images. You may be involved with designing product packaging, posters and billboard ads, logos, business stationery, and more. Graphic designers creatively come up with unique designs that capture people’s attention, and impart the feelings, expectations, and values the brand is looking to project. It’s a job that proves the adage that an image can say a thousand words.

Most graphic designers will have formal qualifications and need a portfolio of work to apply for jobs.

Photographers help people celebrate special occasions; capture dramatic, newsworthy images; allow us to see new facets of the world; help clients present their face and personality to an audience; contribute to creative marketing and advertising campaigns; or even help solve crime. The places you can go with photography are diverse! The day-to-day job involves going out on shoots, photo editing and enhancement, and the administrative tasks of running your own business.

No formal qualifications are required to be a photographer, but courses in photography, other creative arts, and media are well-regarded and will help you gain experience. You need to be great with a camera, related equipment, and software tools, and need a portfolio to get jobs.

Photography is a bold career choice that suits people with a blend of artistic flair, technical skills, and entrepreneurial thinking. In this career toolkit, we’ll guide you through each stage of becoming a professional photographer.

From the news to prestige dramas, reality TV to kids shows, so many stories that reach big audiences are on television. And if you’ve ever watched the credits to your favourite shows, you’ll know that it takes many people to bring those stories to air. TV productions require technical crews to operate cameras, lighting, and sound technology, set, prop, and costume designers, hair and make-up artists, writers, directors, producers, and post-production editors, sound editors, and more. These workers require a lot of skill, and play a practical role in bringing together a creative vision. It’s interesting work, where no two days are the same.

Typically, no formal qualifications are needed, but there’s benefits to studies in digital media, production, creative arts, and similar which will build the required skills and portfolio of your work to potential employers.

When you think of a librarian, you might conjure a stereotype of a bespectacled book-shelver asking you to be quiet. But in fact, librarians enjoy lively, fun careers. They help people find the information they’re looking for, for projects as diverse as family histories to highly specialised academic research, using their research skills to solve a range of different problems.

They also acquire new books, manage cultural and archival collections, and run community events like author talks, exhibitions, workshops, trainings, book clubs, and literacy programs. Librarians can work at local, state, national, school, or university libraries.

Librarians typically require a qualification in Information Services or Information Management.