The average salary in the IT sector last year was €23,000 higher than the mean average gross salary, jobs platform IrishJobs has found.

IT had the highest average salary of any sector in 2024 at €69,050 ahead of construction (€63,502), finance (€63,165), engineering (€59,808) and legal (€56,232).

Professionals working in cleaning related occupations (€27,719) earned the lowest average salary, followed by catering (€31,322) and security (€33,629).

Full-time employees in Ireland earned a mean gross salary of €46,791, a difference of €22,959 with the highest-earning economic sector.

Ireland compares positively with the UK (£35,648 or €42,377) and Germany (€45,800), according to the analysis of salaries and benefits in the most commonly posted jobs undertaken by IrishJobs parent The Stepstone Group.

Dublin is the county with the highest annual average salary at €48,343, indicating its continued strength as a national hub for enterprise activity and highly skilled labour.

Limerick has the second-highest annual average salary (€46,011) powered by its manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare, and technology sectors, while Cork (€45,232) has the third-highest average annual salary. The average annual salary in Galway is €43,679.

Head of finance was the highest paid occupation on average at €90,798, closely followed by a senior quantity surveyor (€90,207) following a 7.55% annual increase in average salaries on the back of high construction demand.

Recent data published by IrishJobs showed that seven in 10 of the most in-demand roles in 2024 were in construction and related sectors, and included quantity surveyors, site managers and site engineers, maintaining the trend from 2023.

Roles in the pharmaceutical and IT sector made up the remaining five most highly paid professions and included supervising pharmacist (€89,373), scrum master (€86,641) and senior software engineers (€84,076). 

Automation engineers in the IT sector were among the professions to experience the highest average increase in salary year-on-year (15.1%) due to accelerating demand among employers for AI skills.

Occupational pensions are the most common benefit provided to employees in Ireland on top of their base salary, and the top five are completed by free parking, the cycle-to-work scheme, career development, and flexible hours.

Sam Dooley, country director of the Stepstone Group Ireland with responsibility for IrishJobs, said research shows IT professionals remain in high demand while unemployment is expected to remain low this year.

"As the AI transformation accelerates and more firms look to build out their AI capabilities, we expect this competition for a limited pool of highly skilled professionals to grow at pace," he continued.

"With many employers struggling to keep pace with demands for higher wages, enhancing employee benefits can help employers develop a compelling proposition for talent without breaking the bank.

"Our findings showed that an occupational pension plan was the top benefit in 2024 for professionals in Ireland.

"With the introduction of pension auto-enrolment on the horizon this year, it provides an important opportunity for employers without a company scheme to consider whether they need to adapt their own pension offering to streamline potential complexities and meet the evolving needs of talent.”

(Pic: Getty Images)