Devex Career Hub: Inside our guide to globaldev’s top 10 sectors

You can say a lot of things about the global development sector, but I highly doubt that it’s ever been described as “easy to navigate.” It’s in this spirit that I put together our most extensive downloadable guide yet — 54 pages, to be exact — which breaks down the top development sectors into 10 comprehensive snapshots to help you find your fit in a complicated employment landscape. In this edition of Career Hub, I’m sharing some of what I learned while putting together Your ultimate guide to development’s top sectors and job board insights on 2024’s top-paid development roles. Plus, featured job postings from the likes of USAID, World Vision, and much more useful info to help you along the globaldev career path. P.S.: This is the final Career Hub of 2024! Please have a safe holiday season, and let’s reconnect in the new year. We have a lot of exciting things planned for 2025, so stay tuned! Top jobs this week 1. MEL Coordinator Alliance for Children Everywhere Southern Africa | Zambia 2. Regional Technical Lead Alliance for Children Everywhere Zambia | Malawi 3. Resource Development & Management Advisor, Africa, VisionFund International World Vision Mali | Niger | Senegal | Democratic Republic of Congo | Mauritania | Rwanda 4. Financial Analyst USAID Senegal 5. Senior Officer, Award Management and Compliance Action Against Hunger United States 6. Program Director Relief International Jordan + See the full list Featured opportunity: Devex Talent Solutions, our very own boutique recruitment agency, is assisting the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, in their search for a Treasury Officer, Portfolio Valuation, to be based in Beijing, China. Those interested should apply by Jan. 20. + For more opportunities, check out the weekly Devex Jobs Alert newsletter on LinkedIn as well as Devex’s Job board. Data download: Inside globaldev’s top sectors Our new guide balances need-to-know essentials with new salary data insights and insider advice for each of the top 10 sectors, which we determined based on nearly two years worth of Devex job postings. To give you a taste of what’s inside, here are a few things that stood out to me while putting this report together. The most jobs aren’t always in the United States. While job seekers on Devex are never short of available opportunities based in the U.S., I found that it wasn’t the leading location for some sectors, including agriculture and rural development, where more openings were based in India and Italy. The long and short of employment contracts. The social and inclusive development sector offered the most job opportunities overall, but over the past year, 55% of the roles were on a short-term contract basis, more than any other sector. For full-time staff roles, your best bets would have been in banking and finance. Climate funding highs and lows. I also highlighted key trends to know about in each sector, as a part of being a strong job candidate is being well-informed. For example, while global climate finance reached a record high in 2023, the finance gap to fund climate adaptation in low-income countries has also grown. Download: Your ultimate guide to development’s top sectors (Career) Unlock our best career advice: We upped our guide game in 2024, producing more detailed downloadables than in any year prior for our Devex Career Account members. If you’ve yet to explore these, we are offering a special discount for a limited time. Members receive all of our career advice and trend analysis articles, invites to digital events, many more postings from our job board, and all of our downloadable guides. Here’s a sampling of our most-read career guides of 2024: - Your guide to negotiating consulting contracts. - Your ultimate guide to development consulting. - The career transition checklist: 7 steps for success. - Job hunt checklist: 7 questions to answer. Members-only jobs this week 1. Market System Development (MSD) Specialist - Middle East and Europe Global nongovernmental, humanitarian aid organization Jordan 2. Leadership Development Manager, Southwest Evangelical Christian disaster relief organization United States 3. Director of Operations and Finance Global research nonprofit organization Rwanda 4. Gender-Based Violence Officer Humane migration organization Switzerland 5. Head of Global Logistics and Procurement (Hybrid) Humanitarian nongovernment organization United Kingdom (Remote) 6. Senior Health Systems Specialist, Monitoring & Evaluation Nonprofit human development organization Philippines Data download, 2.0: 2024’s 20 highest-paid roles The job market may be tough for some, but 2024 still offered some high-paying job opportunities for senior professionals in the global development sector. Advertised salaries on the Devex job board reached as high as $750,000, underscoring the strong demand for strategic leaders in fields such as public health, finance, and digital transformation. Across the top 20 positions, salary ranges averaged between $331,625 and $418,183. The biggest share of these hiring organizations were foundations, including influential names such as the MacArthur Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For those planning their next career move, reviewing the top-paying opportunities can provide essential insights into market trends and organizational priorities. Understanding which roles command the highest salaries can help you tailor your career trajectory, refine your skill set, and strategically position yourself for similar opportunities in 2025. Download: The 20 best-paid global development opportunities in 2024 (Career) Around the watercooler News and views from around global development worth knowing about. - Bankings’ teetering climate alliance. Is Goldman Sachs’ exit from the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking Alliance the latest sign that big corporations are shirking their climate commitments? It depends on who you ask. - A win for USAID. The U.S. is the only one of the five most prominent donor nations that has published the targets, strategies, and evidence to back up its localization commitments. (Devex Pro) - Finally, some good news. Amid the doom and gloom of global development news, there have been stories to make us smile. Here’s a look at some good news from 2024. + To keep up to date with all the must-read global development coverage, be sure to sign up to the daily Devex Newswire. Sign up to Devex Career Hub for global development’s top jobs, expert career advice, and practical tips to help you do more good for more people.