Examples of "niche" jobs

[Poptart4]

Everyone on MN seems to work in a very niche job that very few people could actually do. Earning lots of money of course. But they can never say what this job is as that would be very outing

So out of curiosity, can someone please list a few of these niche jobs?

The point is, when people are posting about things in their life on here, they don't want to give away too much that could be identifying.
So if you are a teacher, or a Police officer or a nurse or a plumber or a hairdresser, it doesn't really identify you, but if you know you are the only person to do your specific job in your Health Authority or your County Council or in the whole of Scotland or even your region of England, then telling people what you do is going to be pretty 'outing' so you would be quite guarded. Doesn't mean it is any more special than anyone else, just identifying.

I always think the same when people ask about the worst or most unusual names they have heard. I come across some corkers in my job, but there is no way I could mention them on here, as obviously the whole point is they are really, really unusual, and therefore identifying. I don't mind contributing to the "Is 'Anna' really popular where you live at the moment? type questions, as (due to the fact it is), I'm not identifying anyone particularly by saying yes.

So I think you are reading it wrong. People aren't giving too much away as they don't want to be identified.

@Plausiblebigjobs
Are you in Geneva then?
I’m a scientist, used to work for CERN but now work for pharma, also in Switzerland.
Industry pays better than the UN agencies or other IGOs.

I’ve got specialist skills; PhD, MBA, bilingual but so have soooo many other people on the international professional scene.

@SnarkyBag

I think it depends how people are using the term. My occupation isn’t niche but the area I cover within my company is in the sense that no one else in my he company is trained to do it. I’m not irreplaceable in the long term though no one is

This is exactly what I’m thinking. I see quite a few posters describing their jobs as ‘niche’, but I don’t think the majority of these are being so literal as to suggest that no one else anywhere does that job, and that if they die tomorrow, the skill dies with them.

I’m the only person doing my job in the UK office, which constitutes about 600 - 700 people - so when I’m not there, the work doesn’t get done. It’s a job plenty of people would have heard of, but one where I often have to explain my job title. Add to that the fact that my industry has some fairly specific demands, and I think my role would qualify as ‘niche’... but that doesn’t mean literally no one else could do it. It just means that, if I quit, my boss would probably have to pick someone less experienced than me, or as experienced, but requiring industry-specific training, as my replacement. Not irreplaceable by any means; just hard to replace like-for-like.

@Plausiblebigjobs

I am always vague about my job on here but have NCed to give details. I’m a translator for the United Nations. I make early six figures tax free plus school fees plus rental subsidy. If you read the vacancy notices for organizations like these, whether you believe I work there or not, you’ll see loads of jobs requiring very specific skills that few people have and offering high salaries. I had to pass exams just to interview for my job and having seen it from the other side very few candidates are suitable and they still need 2 or 3 years to get up to speed as the organization is unique. I can imagine there are many many jobs where you need a specific degree plus a specific type and length of experience that means that it is hard to find someone and really good people can name their salary.

That's really interesting, Plausible. Which languages do you speak?

I wonder whether translation work will be automated relatively soon, what do you think? I don't work in the field, it just strikes me as something that computer bods would be working towards.

BackForGood is spot on!

I came across someone the other day who is a mobile ultrasound technician for alpacas and llamas. There can’t be many of those surely!

@wsereab

Depends what you consider niche? There are only 300 in my profession in the UK. We virtually all work for the NHS

I wonder if we do the same thing, I was about to say something similar I usually say that I work in "small, obscure medical speciality" if mentioning my job

My husband advises on a very specific and small bit of EU legislation that affects a HUGE industry. It's not 6 figure money but it's good, and there are probably 100 roles in the whole country.

I also know someone whose job is designing parts of dental machinery.

Pretty niche!

My skills aren't niche, but I am for having them altogether.

I work for a service provider for the public sector. I led the only successful project to introduce a statutory measure that was practical for practitioners and had a positive impact on service users. There have been repeated failed attempts to deliver this project in each of the four home nations, and mine is the only one with long term success - seven years and counting.

My skills are quite broad, which is a blessing and a curse. My work would find it difficult to replace my whole skill set, but then I'd also find it difficult to monetize my whole skill set in another role.

I guess I've created a niche for myself via my own business/brand, which were I to name would obviously be outing.
Am I replaceable? 100% yes.
Can others do it? In their millions no doubt.
Could anyone do it my way? Obviously not.

Was a lady working at Bewilderwood who claimed to be an international standard body paint artist. Her "3 minutes on a 5 yr old" work was pretty amazing, actually. Seemed niche to me.

DH doesn't just "cycle" - he does a specific type of cycling that is a bit niche. Not as niche as Speedway I suppose.

Don't think I'm niche but don't know how my professional profile compares to anyone, either.

I know of about 50 people with a similar job to mine - one of us in most of the (seriously) big Food/drink/ etc companies.
I work in a highly specialised area of consumed insight, specialising in new-to-world categories where existing methods just don’t work.
It’s very stressful, full-on, and very well paid (about 3 times as much as regular consumer insight).

My job is niche in that it is difficult to get into. The kind of job you can't get without relevant experience and relevant experience is difficult to get due to low number of positions. It's not well paid though as it's interesting and lots of people would like to get into it.

My ex husband worked on a farm but him primary responsibility was the care and maintenance of the anaerobic digester.

That’s not terribly niche.

The niche job, in my opinion, was that of the small team of engineers/divers that were periodically hired to perform repairs etc to the parts of the digester that could not be reached by mere mortals. In full diving gear they would have to plunge into the warm sludge to fix whatever part of the machine had broken.

Exdh tells me they are richly rewarded for this unenviable niche job.

'Niche job' always makes me think of a sagger maker's bottom knocker, which was reportedly the most obscure occupation ever to feature on the programme 'What's My Line?'

*saggar
'sagger' is probably even more niche!

I had a career change. If I were to list both jobs and my location, that narrows down to a list of three people. I'm the only female, so a very quick Google would identify me. I'm very aware of that on here and as I've mentioned all of those pieces of information at one time or another I'm careful not to post anything too personal. But I still wouldn't mention all of the info in one post, I'm not going to make it that easy!

I would be replaceable, everyone is, but my job is definitely niche.

My job is fairly niche, in that it requires a certain combination of skills and experience that is not common. It combines practical experience, with technical knowledge of both engineering and law. Most people have either the engineering experience or the legal experience, my job combines both.

I work in a firm of 7000ish people, 4 of us do my job. We have been trying to recruit for the last couple of years without luck. We are now training up for the role from graduate level, it’s very difficult because of the lack of practical experience, we need to send the grads on secondment to fill the gaps. It’s an expensive way of recruiting and training but it means we should have people to take up the roles if and when my colleagues and I get promoted or leave.

Mine is "niche" in that unlike HR, finance, project management etc organisations only usually require 1 person doing my role (if anyone, depending on their size), so it means it's a small field and is a sector where lots of us know each other particularly as networking is so important as we get little internal support. Salary isn't particularly huge though can command a lot more in some sectors more than others.

Nobody is going to recognise you because your DH is a MAMIL or plays golf.

No, but if he’s a cave diver or something else fairly unusual and you’ve previously mentioned the age of your kids, and/or your job people join the dots and then recognise you. Not sure how many times this needs explaining.

My job is totally not niche but I’ve got to a level of skill where I’ll hopefully always be employable at a decent salary . My husband is very well paid but he has got to his level because of being able to combine two skill sets (commercial and technical).

Not me (boring job in accounts) but a few of my friends have unusual professional occupations:

Bonsai artist
Postage stamp designer
Stunt performer
Dancer with the Royal Ballet

I run drug discovery programmes, where I design and make novel therapeutics for cancer. Not by myself, obvs, but my department does.

That's fairly niche, although there's probably a few thousand in the world that could do that (or something similar)

I would think of someone who runs their own business selling something very specific, or handmade/artisan crafts