I compiled an Excel database with all career tracks and job positions, showing also job description, salary, work days, skills and friends required, etc. Summary of salaries is shown in this table:
| Career track | Game | Adult jobs | Teen/Elder jobs | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Adventurer | Seasons | $172 | $225 | $375 | $415 | $580 | $870 | $1,050 | $1,560 | $1,910 | $2,730 | $72 | $95 | $125 |
| Architecture | FreeTime | $155 | $175 | $248 | $415 | $525 | $615 | $985 | $1,123 | $1,970 | $2,300 | $56 | $76 | $102 |
| Artist | University | $231 | $357 | $483 | $630 | $808 | $1,339 | $1,785 | $2,232 | $2,625 | $4,549 | |||
| Athletic | base game | $154 | $238 | $322 | $420 | $539 | $893 | $1,190 | $1,488 | $1,750 | $3,033 | $97 | $110 | $125 |
| Business | base game | $168 | $252 | $350 | $448 | $560 | $728 | $924 | $1,400 | $1,663 | $2,100 | $52 | $76 | $98 |
| Criminal | base game | $196 | $280 | $385 | $490 | $595 | $742 | $896 | $1,064 | $1,575 | $1,925 | $50 | $62 | $105 |
| Culinary | base game | $126 | $168 | $183 | $242 | $308 | $469 | $812 | $1,206 | $1,330 | $2,170 | $63 | $84 | $91 |
| Dance | FreeTime | $215 | $275 | $375 | $340 | $520 | $680 | $815 | $1,380 | $2,025 | $2,950 | $62 | $85 | $112 |
| Education | Seasons | $215 | $316 | $452 | $642 | $754 | $1,560 | $1,641 | $1,892 | $2,430 | $3,450 | $64 | $86 | $116 |
| Entertainment | FreeTime | $240 | $265 | $305 | $420 | $505 | $690 | $820 | $1,120 | $2,540 | $3,105 | $51 | $82 | $105 |
| Gamer | Seasons | $123 | $147 | $225 | $296 | $325 | $453 | $763 | $950 | $1,250 | $1,950 | $45 | $74 | $107 |
| Intelligence | FreeTime | $225 | $310 | $325 | $395 | $490 | $650 | $1,070 | $1,540 | $3,225 | $3,750 | $48 | $85 | $106 |
| Journalism | Seasons | $115 | $228 | $287 | $385 | $457 | $668 | $874 | $1,168 | $2,350 | $2,350 | $57 | $84 | $115 |
| Law | Seasons | $148 | $215 | $365 | $422 | $488 | $725 | $865 | $1,175 | $1,572 | $1,912 | $74 | $98 | $145 |
| Law Enforcement | base game | $336 | $448 | $552 | $616 | $686 | $756 | $826 | $875 | $910 | $1,225 | $45 | $75 | $125 |
| Medicine | base game | $280 | $385 | $476 | $574 | $672 | $770 | $875 | $980 | $1,356 | $1,488 | $65 | $87 | $125 |
| Military | base game | $350 | $455 | $560 | $630 | $700 | $770 | $812 | $840 | $1,094 | $1,138 | $57 | $77 | $100 |
| Music | Seasons | $135 | $186 | $223 | $335 | $452 | $535 | $1,030 | $1,950 | $2,100 | $2,830 | $52 | $75 | $98 |
| Natural Scientist | University | $231 | $483 | $672 | $787 | $945 | $1,134 | $1,344 | $1,544 | $2,283 | $10,497 | |||
| Oceanography | FreeTime | $185 | $215 | $295 | $325 | $450 | $585 | $860 | $1,320 | $2,880 | $3,970 | $47 | $83 | $108 |
| Paranormal | University | $252 | $375 | $525 | $672 | $840 | $1,092 | $1,386 | $2,100 | $2,494 | $4,725 | |||
| Politics | base game | $308 | $420 | $504 | $602 | $679 | $756 | $840 | $1,138 | $1,225 | $1,313 | $53 | $72 | $112 |
| Science | base game | $217 | $322 | $448 | $525 | $630 | $756 | $896 | $1,036 | $1,522 | $2,333 | $64 | $105 | $115 |
| Show Business | University | $420 | $575 | $714 | $861 | $1,088 | $1,155 | $1,312 | $2,205 | $3,051 | $5,022 | |||
| Slacker | base game | $126 | $154 | $210 | $252 | $385 | $392 | $613 | $788 | $933 | $1,400 | $45 | $71 | $96 |
Excel file with job details
Watch video to see the Excel file you receive after payment.
Which is the best career track in The Sims 2?
This depend by lots of variables… no career is the best in all circumstances.
Number of work days vary from job to job, higher paying jobs may have less work days thus comparing jobs in terms of weekly earnings is difficult from above summarized table (use Excel table for details about work days), but daily earnings also matter, because in the day of promotion you are getting a bonus double of daily salary, and if you’re clever to be promoted to top of career then send sim at work in bad mood to get demoted and re-promoted you can get promotion bonus again.
The strategy to get rich depends also by which day of week promotion occurs. You may be promoted to a position having next days free, and while waiting next working day to get the next promotion, your adult Sim may turn into elder and get retired.
Military Career and Law Enforcement Career are have the highest pay at entry level jobs, thus being the best for a starter family with adults without skills.
Business Career (requiring charisma, logic, creativity) or Criminal Career (requiring mechanical, body, creativity) are the easiest careers for Sims that are in your family since child or teen. Because if you have a swimming pool, chess table or piano in the house, the body, logic and creativity skills are earned automatically by the time Sims reach adulthood.
Highest paid careers are the ones for University graduates: Artist, Natural Scientist, Paranormal, Show Business, but obviously these are hardest careers to reach the top position, as they require 4 skills instead of 3.
Natural Scientist – Ecological Guru have highest salary per day: $10.497, but only 1 work day per week.
Show Business – Icon is the highest paying job per week: $5.022 x 3 work days per week.
Advice for quick advancing in careers
Go to community lots to make body skill, because Sims do not age unless they are at home (or you use cheat “aging -off“), unfortunately is not possible to make creativity or logic skill by playing piano or chess on community lots.
Is difficult to maintain large number of friends by playing a single family. You should play multiple families to make friends with the Sim you intend to reach top position in careers. I was able in this way to reach even level 10 (Mayor) in Politics which required 17 friends in The Sims 1. This in 2004 when I did not had internet connection and I had not many things to do thus could play The Sims for long periods of time, I compiled a table with the 10 career tracks in base game, by testing personally each job.
The Sims 2 introduced a cheat “boolprop testingcheatsenabled true” that, if entered while you are in neighborhood view, allow you once you open a lot to click the mood bars and friendship scores, quickly making friends.
Does anyone managed to reach top position in a career without cheating?
>”Go to community lots to make skills, because Sims do not age …”
Hello, just to offer a correction. In the Sims 2 as far as I know you cannot build skills on community lots normally outside of college campus community lots (which are inaccessible to adults not attending college). Without mods, you will simply build fun or deplete energy on chessboards and exercise machines while on community lots. You do build fitness however!
There is a mod that enables Sims to build skills on community lots.
That defeats the whole purpose of not using cheats / mods to evade the aging process. Better to fix the article than to give it excuses.
> “Number of work days vary from job to job, higher paying jobs may have less work days thus comparing jobs in terms of weekly earnings is difficult , but usually daily earnings matter more, because in the day of promotion you are getting a bonus double of daily salary.”
This is total nonsense, of course. There is NOTHING difficult about comparing weekly earnings. Simply multiply the daily wages at any level with the number of workdays per week for that same level, and you have weekly earnings per level. From there, the comparison with other careers is easy as pi!
Getting double wages in the event of a promotion is all good and well, and it helps your household funds. But this bonus is NOT given daily or even weekly, but ONLY in the case of promotion, ONCE per level. It should therefor NOT be factered in while comparing salaries for the different careers!
Also, fussing about the number of days free you get after promotions, is also pointless. If you get to the top level of a career early, you may be in that job for several weeks (especially if you drink some Elixir occasionally), and then the number of free days after promotion is meaningless, because AGAIN, it happens just once per level.
By the way, most of the time, you will find that a sim gets promoted just before an upcoming day off, and on the new level, they would have to WORK the next day. I’ve even had occasions, where a sim got home from work with a promotion, and had to be at work on the new level 2 hours later. In other words, the carpool would arrive in an hour, and the sim had no off-time at all! And at the end of that shift, it happened AGAIN! Good for your household funds, but not great for that sim’s mood, I can tell you!