Salary
Average Salary: $75,790
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $3,164,081
Unless you start your own company, develop a new router, or author a few successful books on networking, you aren't likely to get mega-rich with this job, but you can bring home a fine salary. In 2014, the average income for a network professional was $75,790 (source).
You probably won't make that much right out of the gate, but if you get some experience and certifications, and make sure you're up to date on advancing technologies and networking trends, you'll be about as well-poised as you can be for career advancement.
Also, the more you know and the more experience you have, the better your chances are of bumping that salary up. And there's some real money to be made if you can branch out from network management into network security.
Work in networking for a while and you'll eventually meet some good guy hackers who are paid to test the security of other people's networks. It's a career-broadening option to keep in your hip pocket, because "security" is just about the biggest buzzword in the computer world these days.