We all know that lots of people aren’t doing a job directly related to their university degrees, but did you know that many celebrities are also in the same boat? This makes us wonder what would happen if they weren’t famous and if they had to survive in the “normal” job market, relying simply on their degrees like we do?
Interested to find this out, SEO provider Reboot utilised Payscale.com and estimated the potential 2023 annual salary of 27 celebrities based on their university degrees, thus revealing their estimated salaries and the mind-blowing number of years they would need to reach their current net worth if they took an alternative job!
Key findings
- Graduated with a degree in Ancient World Studies, Coldplay singer Chris Martin would need 3,293 years to reach his current net worth if he had an alternative job as a museum curator.
- Prince William would need almost 2,500 years to reach his current wealth if he had to take a normal job based on his university degree alone!
- Rapper 2 Chianz, is the musician that would earn the most if weren’t famous, with a predicted salary of £86,414 in 2023. This is followed by singer John Legend and Korean idol Jin(BTS).
- American actor and comedian Ken Jeong is the actor who would earn the most. He would be earning £157,646 a year now if he chose to pursue his medical career. Mayim Bialik ranked second with £134,147 and Natalie Portman third with £79,007.
Which musician would earn the most with their university degree?
| Celebrity | College/university degree | Potential job role | Predicted salary 2023 (£) |
| 2 Chainz | Alabama University | Clinical psychologist | 86,414 |
| John Legend | University of Pennsylvania | Writer | 56,786 |
| Jin (BTS) | Konkuk University | Archivist | 46,087 |
| Chris Martin – Coldplay | University College London | Museum/gallery curator | 40,000 |
| Emeli Sande | University of Glasgow | Neuroscientist | 38,000 |
Rapper 2 Chainz, is the musician that would earn the most if he weren’t famous! With a degree in psychology from Alabama University, he would most likely be a clinical psychologist, earning approximately £86,414 in the US this year!
Singer and songwriter John Legend, in second place, would be earning about £56,786 if he became a writer after finishing his English degree specialising in African American literature.
Korean star Jin from BTS ranked third place with an estimated salary of £46,087 if he weren’t famous.
Which actor/actress would earn the most with their university degree?
| Celebrity | College/university degree | Potential job role | Predicted salary 2023 (£) |
| Ken Jeong | Medical degree | Doctor / General Practitioner | 157,646 |
| Mayim Bialik | PhD in neuroscience | Neuroscientist | 134,147 |
| Natalie Portman | Psychology | Clinical psychologist | 79,007 |
| Eva Longoria | Masters in Chicano studies | Higher education lecturer | 73,804 |
| Wanda Sykes | Marketing | Marketing executive | 70,777 |
As a medical graduate and an officially licensed physician for a few years, it was estimated that American actor and comedian Ken Jeong would be earning £157,646 a year now if he chose to pursue his medical career. American actress Mayim Bialik, graduated with a PhD in Neuroscience from UCLA, ranked second as the actor who would earn the most with university degrees (£134,147). Best known for her role in Black Swan, Natalie Portman ranked third with an estimated salary of £79,007.
With a “regular”job, how long would it take them to reach their current net worth?
| Celebrity | University | College/university degree | Potential job role | Predicted salary 2023 (£) | Number of years to reach current net worth |
| Chris Martin | University College London | Ancient World Studies | Museum curator | 40,000 | 3,293 |
| Prince William | University of St Andrews | Geography | Architectural technologist | 33,000 | 2,494 |
| Emma Watson | Brown University | English literature | Writer | 31,000 | 2,257 |
| Bradley Cooper | Georgetown University | English | Editorial assistant | 49,379 | 1,667 |
| John Legend | University of Pennsylvania | English, African American literature | Writer | 56,786 | 1,449 |
| Tom Hiddleston | University of Cambridge | Classics | Archivist | 30,000 | 1,098 |
| Kourtney Kardashian | University of Arizona | Theatre Arts and Spanish | Production Manager, Theater | 50,202 | 1,066 |
| Gerard Butler | University of Glasgow | Law | Lawyer | 65,000 | 1,013 |
| Natalie Portman | Harvard University | Psychology | Clinical psychologist | 79,007 | 938 |
| Eva Longoria | California State University | MA Chicano studies | Higher education lecturer | 73,804 | 894 |
Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin ranked first as the celebrities who would take the longest to reach their current net worth if they had to earn their fortune based on a university degree alone! Graduated from University College London with a degree in Ancient World Studies, the British singer would be most likely to be a museum curator like other graduates with the same degree. It is estimated that he would be earning an annual salary of £40,000 this year, which would have required him to work 3,293 more years in order to reach his current net worth!
Prince William ranked second. Despite his current net worth standing at £83 million, most typical Geography graduates would earn £33,000 on average in 2023 after 17 years of work experience. If Prince William was born into a different family, he may have instead become an architectural technologist – meaning that it would have taken him 2,494 years to become as rich as he is now.
In third place is actress Emma Watson, who graduated from Brown University with a degree in English literature. With her English degree and interests in journaling and reading books, she could have become a writer after graduation, earning potentially a salary of £31,000 this year. This means it would take her 2,257 years to reach the same net worth she has now if she didn’t step into the acting industry playing Hermione Granger.
The full dataset could be found here on Onedrive.
Methodology
- SEO provider Reboot was interested in finding out how much celebrities could earn from their university degrees if they weren’t famous.
- To do this, a seed list of popular celebrities in the music and/or acting industry were selected. A final list of 27 celebrities were later refined, based on available data on their university degrees. Multiple articles from international reputable news sources were referenced including BBC, Buzzfeed, Glamour, Insider, Koreaboo.
- Any celebrities who have a degree closely related to their current job were omitted from the list. For example, actor Adam Sandler was excluded from the final list due to the fact that his degree is acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
- Celebrities who hold acting degrees but work in the entertainment industry as musicians were still included in the study, such as JIN (BTS).
- They then utilised Prospects to discover the potential job roles that each celebrity could pursue with their degree.
- They then put each job into a reliable data source Payscale and noted down the average entry -level salary. The entry salaries were attained for the respective country the celebrity is from (where they would most likely be working now).
- “Year of experience” was filtered to “Entry level” or “Entry career” to determine the starting salary for each job on Payscale. The predicted salary 2023 of each job was estimated from Payscale based on the number of years of experience each person would have had.
- Current net worth was obtained for each celeb from CelebrityNetWorth.com. SEO provider Reboot then calculated the potential number of years to reach their current net worth (assuming no tax or expenses) by: the current net worth / predicted salary 2023.
- The results were then filtered and ranked to deduce the potential number of years they would reach their current net worth if they took the alternative job!
- The full dataset can be found here on Onedrive.
- All data was collected in January 2023 and is subject to change.