An ever-growing demand, in business leadership, are for candidates with emotional intelligence. Whilst job skills and knowledge are important, emotional intelligence, or EQ is being realised as a critical success factor in leadership and team management. EQ is the ability to identify, understand and manage human emotion in a positive way to help relieve stress, improve effective communication, empathise with others, defuse conflict and overcome challenges.

Whilst EQ is predominately an attribute that comes with personal growth and experience, this journey can be helped along with a bit of study and education into how you can tap into and improve your own emotional intelligence. The four key attributes that make up EQ are Self Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management.

Daniel Goleman is one of the leading experts in this subject and has written several books and learning aids to help managers and leaders develop their EQ. Improving your EQ will help you and those around you be more successful and work together more harmoniously.

Money isn’t everything but it certainly helps. It also helps to know where it is at. Here is a comprehensive list of the highest paid careers:

1. Attorney- graduate jobs in the legal sector typically have high entry-level salary and incredibly high potential salaries, on average £102,000.

2. Director of Operations- graduate jobs in operations are moderate, around £23.000 but the salary can quickly rise to an average of £100,000.

3. Marketing Director- graduate marketing jobs typically start around £23,000 with potential earnings averaging around £92,000.

4. General Practitioner- junior doctors can expect to earn an average of £27,000 and expect a potential average of £88,000 or more.

5. Geologist- a graduate typically starts around £28,000 with a potential earning of around £82,000.

6. Recruitment Consultant- due to commission, recruitment can be a lucrative career choice with graduates starting at £23,000 and possibly reaching a potential of £80,000 as a basic pay with commission added to that!

7. Creative Director- entry-level creative careers can start quite low but can potentially reach a competitive salary of around £80,000.

8. Investment Banker- starting graduate salaries are usually £27,000 and reach around £78,000 at a senior level.

9. Airline Pilot- entry-level pilots earn approximately £36,000, following a large amount of training and as a senior pilot expect an average of £64,000.

10. Data Scientist- graduates usually take home around £27,000 and can reach a potential £61,000, or more in some companies or due to seniority.