If you’re trying to decide what field to go into, you can do a lot worse than look at where expansion and growth is taking place. Here are the top 10 fastest growing franchise companies in the United States, together with the markets in which they operate:

Top 10 fastest growing franchises

1. Subway – Fast Food
2. Dunkin’ Donuts – Fast Food
3. Cruise Planners – Travel Agency
4. Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches – Fast Food
5. Vanguard Cleaning Systems – Commercial Cleaning
6. Great Clips – Hair Salon
7. Taco Bell – Fast Food
8. Bricks 4 Kidz – Legoengineering classes, camps, parties
9. McDonald’s – Fast Food
10.Sport Clips – Men’s sports-theme hair salon

What do we see…food, travel, cleaning and personal grooming. Hardly rocket science is it?

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York sends a worrying message to anyone over 30. Your first 10 years in the labour market are likely shape your lifetime earning potential.

Across the board, the bulk of earnings growth happens during the first decade,” wrote economists Fatih Guvenen, Fatih Karahan, Serdar Ozkan and Jae Song, who studied the career paths of about 5 million workers over nearly 40 years. Earnings for most, stagnate after the first 10 years of a career.

So if you’re past thirty, and your career  hasn’t progressed to where you think it should be, the chances are that it will never end up where you’d like. The solution, seems pretty clear – strike out on your own and there are no age restrictions on progress. Many entrepreneurs achieve financial success in their middle and later years. Age is no barrier when you do it yourself.