Here are the highest-paying jobs in the PH and their average monthly wages, per PSA
Is it time for a career shift?
The Philippine Statistics Authority has released the results of its 2024 Occupational Wages Survey. Could there be much soul-searching in terms of employment choices happening soon?
The recently made public survey results focused on the basic average pay and monthly allowances in 2024 of full-time time-rated workers in all major industry groups, as well as specific occupations. It also revealed which industry groups offered the highest pay and, at the other end of the spectrum, which ones gave the lowest amounts to employees every payday.
Additionally, PSA tackled the gender wage gap—where in the Philippines do women make more? In which regions do men have higher wages, and by how much?
According to the survey results, the average monthly wage rate of time-rated full-time employees in the Philippines last year was pegged at P21,544.
How does your salary fare in the survey results?
The highest-paid occupations
In 2024, the 10 highest paid occupations were in the air transport, financial, multimedia, telecommunications, and software development industries.
Here they are, with average monthly wages:
- Aircraft pilots – P137,999
- Air traffic safety electronics technicians – P131,536
- Chemical engineers – P101,996
- Mathematicians and financial professionals in insurance and pension funding – P99,154
- Applications programmers in insurance and pension funding – P96,360
- Web and multimedia developers for the entertainment industry – P79,064
- Applications programmers for telecommunications and information systems – P73,804
- Mathematicians and financial professionals in telecommunications – P71,237
- Software developers for publishing – P66,180
- Industrial and production engineers in the electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply industry – P65,806
The National Capital Region paid the highest average monthly wage rate at P29,310. CALABARZON came in second at P19,711, with Central Visayas coming in third with average monthly wages at P19,084.
On the other end of the spectrum, companies in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao offered their workers an average monthly rate of P11,495.
Workers in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing industry earned the least last year, with an average monthly wage rate of P14,615.
Men or women: Who earned more in 2024?
At the national level, female employees earned slightly higher, averaging at P22,236 monthly, than their male counterparts, at P21,009 on average.
Out of the 17 regions in the country, 11 of them paid women more, with the largest gaps in Metro Manila, the Davao Region, and Western Visayas—in these regions, women's wages were at least 10.3% higher than men's. The other regions where women were paid more were Regions II, III, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and BARMM.
On the other hand, male workers earned more in CALABARZON, the Cordillera Administrative Region, and Ilocos Region.
Per PSA, the 2024 Occupational Wages Survey included formal companies with 10 or more employees nationwide. In commissioning the survey, PSA hoped to generate reliable statistics that could help develop wage and salary policies in the country.