This millennial made $130,000 in 2024 — and shares two strategies that helped her do it

Kennie Bukky, a millennial professional, made a six-figure salary in 2024 and attributed her high earnings to two key strategies: building an audience on social media and learning high-paying skills.

Despite being under 30 years old, Bukky balances multiple jobs and earned just over £100,000 (roughly $130,000) in 2024.

However, it wasn’t always this way. When she graduated from university in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science, she felt her prospects looked bleak.

“Straight out of university, I was quite concerned about money, looking at the salaries, it just wasn’t that great,” she told CNBC Make It in an interview.

But she knew she wanted a high salary — and so set about making that happen.

“I was very intentional about what career paths I was going down and how I was exchanging my time for money,” she explained. “Money’s always been an issue … [and] I realized that it’s important to go for high-end careers so that I can mitigate that,” she explained.

This attitude saw Bukky pivot into the financial services sector where she saw there was money to be made.  

She trained to be a compliance officer and has worked in this role for companies including KPMG and Visa. Now, despite being on a break from the 9-to-5 for the past year, she’s commanded six figures as a full-time content creator, as well as through her work as a digital youth engagement officer, career coach, and public speaker.

Bukky chose to keep her legal name and age private for privacy reasons, and CNBC has verified her earnings via invoice statements.

Bukky said that building a personal brand on social media was key to earning a high income.

She has nearly 130,000 followers on TikTok and over 35,000 followers on Instagram and creates content around career advice and wealth-building for her demographic of mostly young, ambitious women of color.

“I just wanted to share my career and personal finance knowledge, because I felt like those are things that I’d mastered at quite a young age and really do well at,” she said.

“I felt like I had so much value to share, and that indirectly turned into me building a personal brand.”

As a result of her growing audience, she’s been able to collaborate with brands like LinkedIn, Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, ACCA, Bing, and HSBC on social media.

Becoming a social media personality gave Bukky the momentum to co-found The Pivot Place in 2023, a business that helps people build skills to transfer into non-coding tech roles.

Bukky said she’s able to charge higher rates for the services she offers because she invested in upskilling.

“I have quite a big belief that when you invest in yourself, skills, and knowledge, that can have a super high ROI [return on investment] in terms of just how much you can earn as a person, which sometimes is more than the stock market will ever pay you,” Bukky explained.

When she was 23 years old, Bukky was working as an onboarding analyst at RBS on a £28,000 salary. She then jumped to a managerial role that paid £40,000.

“I was very intentional about knowing that I wanted a huge jump. I didn’t want to just be here and receive a 3% raise every couple of years,” she explained. “What that involved was going for a role that was a lot more senior than what I was on, and learning to confidently sell myself for roles that were quite senior.”

Although she struggled with imposter syndrome at the time, Bukky wanted to challenge her perception of what she was capable of. To prepare for the role, she did a lot of self-study using free online resources.

She advised young people who are trying to hit a six-figure salary to look for ways to build “high-income skills” that will increase how much their time is worth. Bukky recommended taking courses, joining communities or boot camps, or even starting a side hustle to do this.

“Skills pay the bills. You need to build high-income skills. You need to not remain stagnant in terms of how much your time is worth,” she added.