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Is there a term describe professions that rely on thinking in a broad sense (researcher, software developer, sales person, marketing, HR, etc...) as opposed to jobs that are mostly physical (bouncer, cleaning person, etc...).
I was going for "intellectual" professions, but I don't really like the term as it is offensive to people who I don't include in this category (it implies they are dumb).
How about white-collar?
From M-W:
white-collar: of, relating to, or having the kind of jobs that are done in an office instead of a factory, warehouse, etc.
You can call these people who rely on thinking in their jobs knowledge workers doing knowledge work. They 'think for a living' and need to solve non-routine problems.
These are generally referred to in the UK as professional jobs.
professional
- engaged in one of the learned professions : A lawyer is a professional person.
The antonym, for physical jobs, is manual jobs.
Knowledge work is sometimes found as a back-formation of the much more common "knowledge worker".
You could also say a profession that is part of the tertiary industry, meaning everything that's service related.
A more jocular term for a highly technical/scientific person - especially a professor or someone high up in academia - is boffin.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/boffin
boffin
noun, British Slang. 1. a scientist or technical expert.
Administrative Jobs.
Jobs places in office settings or those that require less physical or no physical activity but instead require mainly on intellect for administration of businesses.
Mind you, intellect in its true sense is just as common amongst tradesmen, perhaps in more abundance even, than administrative workers. You cannot discriminate against someone's 'intellect' just because of the job they hold.
