Kennie Bukky, co-founder of The Pivot Place.
Courtesy: Kennie Bukky
Millennial professional Kennie Bukky earned a six-figure salary in 2024, and she attributed her high earnings to two key strategies: building a social media audience and acquiring high-paying skills.
Even though Bukky is less than 30 years old, he works multiple jobs and earned just over £100,000 (approximately $130,000) in 2024.
However, this was not always the case. When she graduated from university in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in forensic medicine, she felt that her prospects were not bleak.
“Straight out of university, I was really worried about money, looking at the salaries, they just weren't that great,” she told CNBC Make It.
However, she knew she wanted a high salary, so she set out to achieve it.
“I was very conscious about choosing my career paths and how I converted my time into money,” she explained. “Money has always been an issue… (and) I realized it was important to choose a career at the highest level to be able to deal with that,” she explained.
With this approach, Bukky headed into the financial services sector, where she saw there was money to be made.
She trained as a compliance officer and worked in this role for companies such as KPMG and Visa. Now, even though she's been on a hiatus from 9-5 for the past year, she's made six-figure profits as a full-time content creator, as well as through her work as a youth digital engagement specialist, career coach, and public speaker .
Bukky chose to keep her name and age secret for privacy reasons, and CNBC verified her earnings using invoice statements.
“I felt like I had so much value to share.”
Bukky said building a personal brand on social media is the key to earning high income.
He has almost 130,000 followers on TikTok and over 35,000 followers on Instagram. She creates career advice and wealth-building content for her demographic of primarily young, ambitious women of color.
“I just wanted to share what I know about career and personal finance because I felt like I had mastered those things at a young age and was doing really well,” she said.
“I felt I had so much value to share, which indirectly translated into building my personal brand.”
Thanks to her growing audience, she was able to cooperate with brands such as LinkedIn, Deutsche Bank, MicrosoftACCA, Bing and HSBC on social media.
Gaining a social media personality gave Bukky the impetus to co-found The Pivot Place in 2023, a company that helps people develop the skills they need to transition into non-coding technology roles.
“Skills pay the bills”
Bukky said it was able to charge higher rates for the services it offered because it had invested in upskilling.
“I firmly believe that by investing in yourself, your skills and your knowledge, you can get a very high return on investment (ROI) in terms of how much you can earn as an individual, which is sometimes more than what the stock market will ever pay you,” Bukky explained .
When she was 23, Bukky worked as an implementation analyst at RBS for a salary of £28,000. She was then promoted to a management position paying £40,000.
“I consciously knew I wanted a huge leap. I just didn't want to be here and get a 3% raise every few years,” she explained. “It involved taking a much higher-level position than the one I was working in and learning how to confidently sell myself in much more senior positions.”
Even though Bukky was struggling with imposter syndrome at the time, she wanted to challenge her perception of what she was capable of. To prepare for this role, she studied extensively on her own, using free online resources.
She advised young people trying to achieve a six-figure salary to look for ways to acquire “high-income skills” that will increase the value of their time. Bukky recommended taking courses, joining communities or boot camps, and even starting a side business to do so.
“Skills pay the bills. You need to develop high-income skills. You can't be stagnant when it comes to the value of your time,” she added.