Hot 6-figure jobs now

Manufacturing

As the demand for manufacturing has grown in the past two years, so have the number of listings for operations managers, vice presidents of quality control and general managers.

Operations managers typically run plant maintenance, quality control, purchasing and the technical aspects of product manufacturing. Depending on the size of their firm, they can make between $110,000 and $140,000, said Greg Lee, managing partner of WorldBridge Partners, a member firm of the MRINetwork.

Vice presidents of quality control with certification in Quality Management Systems and Lean Manufacturing, which streamlines production flow, boosts quality and reduces costs, can make $150,000 and up.

General managers, meanwhile, oversee purchasing, materials, manufacturing, engineering and quality control. For their efforts, they are paid between $120,000 and $200,000.

Healthcare

Healthcare companies' products and sales team are only as good as their operations teams. And the demand for a good director of operations and vice president of operations is evident among recent six-figure job listings.

An operations director may strategize how to commercialize a product, figure out how to move a drug trial from Phase II to Phase III and handle a regulatory filing with the Food and Drug Administration, said Matt Lemmons, senior partner of the healthcare practice at PrincetonOne, a member firm of the MRI Network.

A director can pull down between $125,000 and $175,000, while a vice president of operations, to whom the director reports, can make between $150,000 and $225,000 plus another 25 percent to 30 percent in bonus, Lemmons said.

Other industries

There's also demand for project managers and general managers at companies in media and telecom, retail and wholesale trade, computer and information technology, and banking and finance.

Some of the top locations for these jobs can be found in Chicago, Houston and Atlanta, according to SimplyHired.com.