Wage growth in Europe: Which jobs have seen the biggest increases?

Wages in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and France grew year-on-year by 5.5%, 5.3%, 3.8%, and 1.9%, respectively, in May 2025. That's based on salary data from global hiring platform Indeed.

After adjusting for inflation — using CPI data from the ONS and Eurostat — real wage growth stood at 2.3% in the UK, 1.8% in the Netherlands, 1.6% in Germany, and 1.1% in France over the same period.

Delving deeper than country-specific rates, wage growth nonetheless varies significantly across occupations and sectors.

Based on data provided by Indeed to Euronews, we take a closer look at the jobs that experienced the largest annual increases and declines in wages, based on a three-month moving average as of May 2025.

Our analysis focuses on the 25 largest occupational categories, calculated by their share of total job postings.

Legal roles see the highest rise in the UK and Germany

Among the four countries named above, legal roles saw the highest real wage growth in both Germany and the UK, with increases of 5.7% and 4.3%, respectively. This category includes several occupations, with lawyers being the leading role.

According to Indeed, the average annual salary for a lawyer is £53,420 (€61,900) in the UK and €71,274 in Germany as of mid-2025. These figures reflect national averages, though salaries vary significantly by region. For example, lawyers in London earn an average of around £70,450 (€81,670) per year.

In France, the management sector and the security & public safety industry both recorded the highest real wage growth, at around 2%. In the Netherlands, cleaning & sanitation roles saw the largest increase at 4%, followed closely by security & public safety at 3.9%.

“Postings are down year on year in almost every occupational category, so it’s important to look at wage growth and job posting trends relative to the average to see which categories are over- and underperforming in the market for new hires,”  Pawel Adrjan, Director of Economic Research at Indeed, told Euronews Business.

Jobs and drivers of wage growth in the UK

Among the four countries, the UK recorded the highest wage growth, both in nominal and real terms.

“The UK's high wage growth has been puzzling economists for a while. While down from its peak, wage growth remains fairly high in nominal terms, despite the fact that demand for new workers has fallen significantly,” Adrjan said.

He noted that there are a number of likely reasons for this trend, and one is that the government has decided to increase the minimum wage. This is impacting salaries not just in the lowest-paid jobs, but it is also having ripple effects on wage distribution. Employers may feel the need to raise salaries across the board to maintain wage differences between roles and experience levels.

Another factor driving wage growth is that labour supply is constricted by lower immigration rates and high economic inactivity. This means employers are more likely to raise wages to attract and retain workers.

Looking at the 25 largest occupations, certain jobs saw more than a 3% jump in real wages in the UK. Top-ranking legal professions showed a 4.3% increase, while roles in retail (3.3%), production & manufacturing (3.2%), loading & stocking (3.1%), and customer service (3%) also saw significant rises.

Growth showed a steady, gradual pattern, with no extreme outliers, aside from the top-performing legal sector and the lowest-ranking software development jobs (-2.2%).

Health and care-related occupations in the UK, including nursing (1.7%), childcare (2.3%), and personal care and home health (2.1%), saw modest real wage growth.

IT wages in decline in Germany

In Germany, legal roles saw the strongest real wage growth at 5.7%, followed by production & manufacturing and medical technician jobs (both at 4.1%).

Education, security, media, and human resources roles also recorded solid gains between 3.5% and 3.9%.

In contrast, IT-related roles saw the biggest declines in real wages. For example, IT operations & helpdesk roles saw a 6.4% decline, and software development jobs registered a decrease of 4.2%. For these roles, this means that prices have gone up faster than wages, reducing workers' purchasing power.

Indeed’s Adrjan noted that wage growth has slowed but remains above the Eurozone average in Germany.

“Wage growth is driven to a large extent by a gradual and coordinated process of union negotiations, which have in many cases concluded with multi-year wage increases that are still affecting aggregate wage growth trends today,” he said.

No outliers in France’s wage growth

In France, real wage growth was relatively flat across many sectors, with most occupations clustered between 0.5% and 1.5%. At the lower end, personal care & home health, banking & finance, and software development saw minimal increases of 0.2% or less.

Leading the list, management and security & public safety roles (both at 2%) are followed closely by the information design & documentation sector (1.9%). Human resources comes in next, at 1.8%.

“In France, there is a high degree of indexation of the minimum wage to inflation, and wages negotiated between firms and unions tend to follow suit, meaning that wage growth responded swiftly to inflation increases in 2022 and 2023 as well as to the marked slowdown in inflation over the past two years,”  Adrjan explained.

Real wages fall in Dutch health and care roles

Wage growth in the Netherlands was led by cleaning & sanitation (4.0%) and security & public safety (3.9%), with notable gains also seen in banking & finance (3.4%), management (3.1%), and construction (3.0%).

In contrast, several care-related occupations experienced real wage declines, including nursing (-0.3%), childcare (-0.5%) and  physicians & surgeons (-0.6%).

Discover more: Salary trends in the UK, Germany, and France

Since the sectors listed in the charts above cover a range of roles, salary details for specific positions can be found on Indeed’s website. Euronews Business articles also offer detailed salary breakdowns for the UK, Germany, and France individually.