Since The Sims 4 is about creating a virtual life all your own, that naturally means you have to go to work. Fortunately, work in TS4 isn’t all that bad — and unlike real life, there’s plenty to choose from. You’ve got your retail and business jobs, some creative careers, and even a wide range of odd jobs to pick from. And it can get a bit overwhelming. That’s where our best Sims 4 careers list comes in handy. We’ve rounded up eight of the best Sims 4 jobs to make the choice easier for you. Some of these are the most high-paying jobs, while others offer rewards of a different kind and help you get the most out of the game.
Sims 4 Careers Basics
Source: EA
There are some important Sims 4 job system basics to get to grips with first, so skip to the next section if you’re already familiar with how this works. Your Sim can get a job at any time by using their phone or computer. Promotion in each job depends on a number of factors, including leveling up job-specific skills. So it’s a good idea to plan ahead and pick out Aspirations related to the skills you’ll need for whatever job you choose. Fortunately, you can switch between Aspirations at any time. If you’ve already started down one path and want another, you aren’t stuck.
Most careers have a foundational level — often the first four or five job levels — and at least two branching paths leading to different, more focused careers. Once you choose a path, you can’t go back and do the other with that same Sim. Keep that in mind when making your choices.
After you’ve chosen your job, you can press the “J” key at any time to bring up the Jobs menu. From there, you’ll see required tasks for the day plus what you need to do for promotion — assuming you don’t use cheats and soar through the ranks in no time. We don’t necessarily recommend doing that unless you’ve gone through all this before, since it does tend to take the fun out of it.
You can also click your Sim’s portrait during work hours to see what work-related choices are available to you and check out your Sim’s current moods. Each Sims 4 job has a specific set of moods that help boost your performance and skill levels, so it’s good to keep up with it. While your jobs will usually have a few tasks relevant to maintaining those moods, you can get a head start by preparing before the workday starts, like brushing your teeth to improve Confidence.
Conservationist: Environmental Manager
Source: The Sims Wiki
2019’s Island Living expansion introduced the Conservationist career and its two branches. This is a fantastic choice if you’re wanting to take a more active role shaping the island’s ecology and get into a career that straddles practical and academic work.
You’ll start out with the general Conservationist job for the first six levels, before branching into either the Environmental Manager or Marine Biologist routes. There’s just a very slight difference in pay between the two. However, the Environmental Manager option gives your Sim extra influence over the island’s ecology while also granting a charisma boost. That’s why it’s our pick for one of the best Sims 4 jobs.
Conservationist has Logic as its main focal point. Usually, Logic-based careers don’t pay as well, but the Conservationist gets the added bonus of interacting with the environment and other Sims more. Plus it’s easy to level up. Using Simpedia levels up Logic, and so does just playing chess.
Being an Environmental Manager means you work with the government to recommend ecological policies, while moving up with your conservation work as well. For example, you’ll write and submit grants to get more money, and you can also work on documentaries, which net you some extra income thanks to royalties. So you’ll get better control over the island’s environment — hence the name — and still rake in the cash.
Actor
Source: The Sims Wiki
The Actor career, part of the Get Famous expansion, is unique in The Sims 4 since it doesn’t actually have any branching paths or even a set work schedule. Instead, you’ll focus on specializing in a variety of skills to land more roles and earn those Simoleons. Just like in real life, you won’t earn as much from your Actor career as you might from one of the other jobs on our list. But this is one of the best Sims 4 jobs because of how it makes you interact with various aspects of the game.
As you’d expect, you’ll need to audition to get started in the Actor career. One thing that makes the Actor job special is how it handles skills. If you want to get famous (read: actually make good money) you’ll need to invest the time into making your Sim a well-rounded candidate with skills like singing, dancing, and, of course, acting.
Assuming you get the part, the next task is actually filming for the role. Each role has its own set of recommended tasks to complete and moodlets to focus on to help improve your performance. Unlike most other jobs, this setup means every day as an Actor brings something different, even if it isn’t super involved.
And the better you perform, the more likely it is your fame and rank increase. There are also other tasks you can do on the job to help raise your chance of getting a Gold Reward.
Gardener Career: Florist
Source: The Sims Wiki
The Seasons expansion finally let you make a career out of your love for flowers with the Gardener career. Obviously, this one is all about plants — for the first four levels, at any rate. After that, the Gardener career branches into two different paths. The second path, the floral designer one, mixes business ownership with creative talent to make something unique and very, very lucrative.
The Gardener career is one of the best Sims 4 careers even at the early levels because it’s entirely work from home. Your schedule is flexible, and you can use the rest of the day to do whatever (though working on skills is the ideal way to spend that time).
You can technically get all the Florist benefits just by purchasing the Violets Are Blue Flower Arranging Table ($250). But there are a few reasons why it’s worth pursuing the Gardener career to do it instead. With a higher Gardening skill level, you’ll have a better chance of growing more and higher quality items for your arrangements without having to buy them. You’ll need to increase the flower arranging skill to get the most out of this path anyway. So you may as well get an hourly wage in the process.
Another important reason is the workweek. The Florist Branch career has an incredibly flexible work schedule. That means a happier Sim and more free time for other activities.
You’ll notice the overall wage seems very low for this branch. However, your earnings can potentially go through the roof. Like paintings, you can end up with a flower arranging masterpiece selling for thousands of Simoleons and only taking a few hours to create. That amount goes up even more if you max out your arrangement ingredients’ freshness and quality.
Painter: Master of the Real
Source: The Sims Forums
The Painter career is one of the most focused and rewarding careers in the game, doubly so you choose the Master of the Real branch. For our money, that’s the best Sims 4 career for painters because it gives you money. Lots of it.
Of course, the start is a bit rough. Your hours are weird, and the base pay is iffy at best. On the other hand, your rewards all work together to help improve your work quality. That translates to more money for every painting you sell.
You’ll get new easels every so often, but also access to new art-related abilities and actions that help boost your Inspiration. Unsurprisingly, inspiration is the best moodlet for the Painter career. The more inspired you are, the better the chance you have for creating higher quality art. Of course, you can do plenty of other things to get Inspired, like listening to music or visiting certain places around town.
The Painter career is practically made for the Creative and Art Lover traits too. Both help you get more Inspired and work more productively, so it’s entirely possible to create a Sim that’s destined to be a master painter from the get-go. In fact, we recommend doing that anyway, even if it’s not your primary Sim.
The reason is the money. As you rank up, especially in the Master of the Real branch since it awards better easels, your paintings improve. They sell for more. And your agent — assuming you hire one — finds buyers for you more and more often. As you start cranking out Masterpieces on a regular basis, you could be earning as much as 7,000 Simoleons per painting.
Business: Investor
Source: EA
If you want a more traditional career, the Investor career is the best Sims 4 career for you. The various levels of the Business career revolve mostly around your usual office day and office tasks. You’ll start with a 9-5 schedule every day and work your way up. You’ll also earn a parody skills, from gossipping with co-workers to mocking corporate leaders — until you are one and can brag about your title.
But interacting with your fellow workers and other Sims helps build your Charisma, which is important for all levels of the Business career. It’s easy to get in the work mood for Business too. Energized and Confident are the main moodlets for this one. But you should be getting those boosted with your morning routine anyway.
That’s all well and good, but the real fun comes at level 7, when you branch into the Investor path. As an Investor, you’ll be playing the stock market, naturally. That means chances for big rewards and also big failures. Fortunately, it’s easier to skew the ratio in favor of big wins by working on the Focused moodlet. Researching stocks and being Focused tends to increase your chances of better payouts. Your furniture rewards at each level for this career all add to your Sim’s Focus too, so that’s a nice bonus.
The Investor route works with computers a lot, so your Sim gains much more Logic than with other careers.
Secret Agent: Villain
Source: EA
The Secret Agent career seems like it’d be pretty slick all around. But the main payout for this career — aside from the hefty salary — is how you interact with other Sims. Unless you really need a romance boost in your relationships, the Villain branch is the best choice for this one. Why is that, you may ask? Because you actually get paid to be mischievous to others.
Early on, you’ll mainly look and act suave for your agent career. Things like drinking tea to improve Focus, playing chess, and building relationships with other Sims help improve your chance for promotion. You’ll get some nifty interactions as well, like the Tranquilizing Handshake. But mostly, your focus is improving Logic and Charisma while completing the Browse Intelligence actions. The career won’t split until later than most (level 8), but your rewards make entering and sustaining necessary moodlets easier. In other words, it goes fast.
Once you choose to be a villain, you get a lot more money than your Diamond Agent counterpart. And your daily tasks switch to just making Mischief and raising that particular skill. Real life secret agents get paid to bring down governments and instigate rebellions. You get 2,500 Simoleons a day to blow air horns and make other Sims streak in front of large crowds. It’s a pretty good deal.
Style Influencer: Stylist
Source: The Sims Wiki
The Style Influencer Career is another one that makes you invest more to get the best rewards. The base path, Style Influencer, requires proficiency in Painting, Writing, and Photography. Your Sim uses painting skills to make prints for sale or display. You can also write fashion articles to boost your performance outside work hours — although it’s a bit risky. If the article flops, your performance actually decreases. Photography works for the Impressions task, where you need to take an impression of an idea, get an image of it, then place it on your style board. It’s tricky at first, but gets easier later.
You’ll need to work hard and prioritize getting in the right moodlets to help pull all this off, but it’s satisfying when you do.
Rewards at this early stage all help improve your performance, and then it’s time to branch at level 6. The Stylist branch is absolutely the best Sims 4 career choice for this one. It pays better, and you get more, and more interesting, interactions.
The choice to give make-overs to other Sims opens Immediately after you embark on the Stylist path. And you’ll want to do that as much as you can, since it’s a friendly interaction that helps raise Charisma. When you max out the career, you can create new design trends to help influence how your Townies dress. You can do this earlier in the other Style Influencer branch, true. But you’ll be earning a few hundred Simoleons less in the process.
Scientist
Source: EA
The Scientist career (part of the Get To Work expansion) doesn’t pay the best. Nor does it have any exciting branches. But it’s one of, if not the best, Sims 4 career because it’s so darn fun. The scientist career is an active one with plenty of daily tasks to work on. And as you’d expect from a scientist, most of these are about inventing new things. These are all things you can use to add some excitement and, sometimes, a dash of chaos to your Sims life. Others, like gathering and analyzing samples, help contribute towards your collection completions.
You’ll need to prioritize things that help you stay Focused. That way, your Sim scientist has a better chance of a scientific breakthrough moment. Those are required for coming up with new inventions and getting promoted, so think of breakthroughs as your career foundation.
The other foundation of the Scientist career is the Sims Ray. It’s a fantastic device that can control how other Sims look and behave. It even changes objects into something else entirely.
There’s also a cloning machine, serums that influence moods and needs, and best of all, a wormhole generator. This is how you’ll get to Sixam, the alien world. There’s all manner of new things to discover there, from aliens — the ones who often invade your — to new home lots.
The only downside to all this is the long workday your Sim has to deal with. Even when your tasks are finished, you still need to stay the length of your shift. Make sure to do plenty of Sim self-care to offset any mood issues.
That’s it for our best Sims 4 career list. You can technically make any career work the way you want it in The Sims 4. But these are ideal if you want something different, more involved, or just more rewarding overall. Work shouldn’t be your whole Sim life, though. We’ve got plenty of Sims 4 custom content to help make sure you live it up once you’re off the clock too:
And that’s just the start. Stick around with The Sims Resource for more Sims 4 custom content, guides, and more in the coming weeks.
