The average salary in Ireland is about €54,400 a year. Average weekly earnings were €1,046.88 in April to June 2026, up 3.9% on a year earlier (CSO Earnings and Labour Costs, published 25 August 2026, preliminary). The typical worker earns less than that. The median for a job held all year was €46,305 in 2025, so half of full-year jobs paid less and half paid more (CSO Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources 2025, published 6 October 2026).
Key figures
| What | Figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average weekly earnings | €1,046.88 (about €54,438 a year) | Q2 2026, preliminary | CSO Earnings and Labour Costs |
| Average hourly earnings | €31.96 | Q2 2026 | CSO Earnings and Labour Costs |
| Median annual earnings, jobs held all year | €46,305 | 2025 | CSO EAADS 2025 |
| Mean annual earnings, jobs held all year | €58,127 | 2025 | CSO EAADS 2025 |
| Median annual earnings, men / women | €50,520 / €41,765 | 2025 | CSO EAADS 2025 |
| Highest-paid county (median weekly) | Dublin, €848.06 | 2025 | CSO EAADS 2025 |
| Lowest-paid county (median weekly) | Donegal, €635.29 | 2025 | CSO EAADS 2025 |
| National minimum wage, age 20+ | €14.15 an hour (€28,696 a year full-time) | 2026 | S.I. No. 472/2025 |
| Take-home on the median job | €37,699 a year (€3,142 a month) | 2026 tax rules | Our calculation |
Figures are gross unless stated. The annual figure from weekly earnings is our multiplication by 52.
Average or median: which is “the” average salary?
Both are correct; they answer different questions.
- The average (mean) adds up all pay and divides by the number of employees. The CSO’s quarterly survey of employers puts it at €1,046.88 a week, which is €54,438 over 52 weeks. It includes part-time staff, which is why average paid hours are only 32.8 a week.
- The median is the middle job: half earn more, half earn less. For jobs held for at least 50 weeks of 2025, the CSO’s figure from Revenue payroll records is €46,305. It rose 3.3% from €44,816 in 2024.
The mean is pulled up by high earners. For the same full-year jobs, the mean was €58,127, which is €11,822 more than the median. If you want to know whether your pay is normal, the median is the better yardstick.
One common mistake online: some guides multiply the CSO’s weekly median (€759.21 in 2025, or €730.89 in 2024) by 52 and report a median salary of around €38,000 to €39,500. That understates it. The weekly figure covers every job, including ones held for a few weeks or a summer, so it is much lower than the median for a job held all year. The CSO publishes the annual median itself: €46,305.
Average salary in Ireland by age
Pay climbs steeply through your twenties and thirties and peaks in your forties.
| Age | Median, all | Median, men | Median, women | Mean, all |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 to 24 | €24,296 | €26,659 | €22,100 | €25,645 |
| 25 to 29 | €40,750 | €41,890 | €39,477 | €45,038 |
| 30 to 39 | €50,770 | €53,571 | €47,500 | €59,856 |
| 40 to 49 | €52,692 | €58,425 | €47,127 | €66,422 |
| 50 to 59 | €49,950 | €56,890 | €43,910 | €65,289 |
| 60 and over | €38,972 | €44,498 | €32,794 | €49,380 |
| All ages | €46,305 | €50,520 | €41,765 | €58,127 |
Annual earnings of jobs held for at least 50 weeks in 2025. Source: CSO EAADS 2025, Tables 7.4 and 7.5.
The detail most guides miss is what happens after 30. Men’s median keeps rising, from €53,571 in their thirties to €58,425 in their forties. Women’s median goes flat: €47,500 in their thirties and €47,127 in their forties. The gap between the two medians grows from 6.1% at 25 to 29 to 12.8% in the thirties, 24.0% in the forties and 29.6% in the fifties. The CSO counts each job whatever its hours, so part of this gap is more women working part-time, not lower hourly pay for the same work.
Average salary by county (and the average wage in Dublin)
The CSO publishes county figures as median weekly earnings, by where people live, not where they work.
| County | Median weekly | Compared with the State |
|---|---|---|
| Dublin | €848.06 | +11.7% |
| Kildare | €831.42 | +9.5% |
| Meath | €799.89 | +5.4% |
| Cork | €795.81 | +4.8% |
| Wicklow | €783.25 | +3.2% |
| Limerick | €773.01 | +1.8% |
| Galway | €764.59 | +0.7% |
| Laois | €755.83 | -0.4% |
| Kilkenny | €755.68 | -0.5% |
| Westmeath | €748.76 | -1.4% |
| Clare | €746.46 | -1.7% |
| Sligo | €730.97 | -3.7% |
| Waterford | €730.77 | -3.7% |
| Offaly | €728.44 | -4.1% |
| Louth | €728.06 | -4.1% |
| Tipperary | €727.14 | -4.2% |
| Roscommon | €726.94 | -4.3% |
| Cavan | €722.47 | -4.8% |
| Carlow | €707.54 | -6.8% |
| Mayo | €700.00 | -7.8% |
| Leitrim | €693.97 | -8.6% |
| Longford | €690.15 | -9.1% |
| Wexford | €682.64 | -10.1% |
| Monaghan | €679.84 | -10.5% |
| Kerry | €662.39 | -12.8% |
| Donegal | €635.29 | -16.3% |
| State | €759.21 |
Source: CSO EAADS 2025, Table 6.2.
Dublin residents earn the most, 33.5% more than in Donegal at the median. Kildare, Meath and Wicklow are near the top because many of their residents commute to Dublin jobs. Only 7 of the 26 counties are above the State figure: Dublin’s large, well-paid workforce pulls the national median up. The gap is slowly narrowing: pay rose 3.2% in Dublin in 2025, but 5.8% in Cavan and 5.5% in Kilkenny.
The CSO doesn’t publish an annual median by county. If Dublin’s 11.7% weekly lead over the State carries over to annual pay, the typical full-year job held by a Dublin resident pays roughly €51,700 (our estimate, not a CSO figure).
Average salary by sector and job
What you do matters far more than where you live. Median weekly earnings by sector in 2025:
| Sector | Median weekly | Change on 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Information and communication | €1,515.67 | +5.2% |
| Financial, insurance and real estate | €1,086.76 | +5.8% |
| Public administration and defence | €1,033.04 | +4.0% |
| Education | €922.28 | +3.6% |
| Industry | €915.81 | +5.0% |
| Professional, scientific and technical | €913.46 | +1.7% |
| Human health and social work | €813.22 | +3.3% |
| Construction | €796.28 | +3.4% |
| Transportation and storage | €781.45 | +3.8% |
| Administrative and support services | €659.26 | +4.2% |
| Wholesale and retail | €573.77 | +4.3% |
| Arts, entertainment and other services | €464.63 | +2.3% |
| Accommodation and food services | €409.00 | +4.4% |
Source: CSO EAADS 2025, Table 3.3. Weekly medians include part-time jobs, which lowers sectors such as retail and hospitality.
The typical tech job pays 3.7 times the typical hospitality job each week. Part of that is hours: hospitality and retail have many part-time jobs.
The public sector pays more on average: €1,261.16 a week against €978.71 in the private sector in Q2 2026 (CSO). That raw gap doesn’t adjust for differences in age, qualifications and type of job; the CSO’s separate public and private sector pay differential analysis does.
For individual jobs, our salary pages give entry, median and senior pay with take-home. A few medians for Ireland (Paygrade estimates, explained on each page): surgeons about €265,000, software engineers €71,000, pharmacists €59,000, registered nurses €52,000, electricians €49,000 and financial analysts €48,000. All 32 careers are on the Ireland salaries page.
What the average salary takes home
Our take-home calculation for a single PAYE employee in 2026, with the personal and employee tax credits, USC and PRSI (4.2% to September, 4.35% from 1 October 2026), before pension contributions:
| Gross a year | Income tax | USC | PRSI | Take-home a year | A month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| €28,696 (minimum wage, 39 hours) | €1,739 | €394 | €1,216 | €25,347 | €2,112 |
| €46,305 (median, full-year job) | €5,722 | €922 | €1,962 | €37,699 | €3,142 |
| €50,000 | €7,200 | €1,033 | €2,119 | €39,648 | €3,304 |
| €54,438 (average, Q2 2026) | €8,975 | €1,166 | €2,307 | €41,990 | €3,499 |
| €58,127 (mean, full-year job) | €10,451 | €1,277 | €2,463 | €43,936 | €3,661 |
The 40% rate starts at €44,000 in 2026, so anyone on the average salary already pays some higher rate tax. Check your own figure with the salary calculator.
What changes in 2027. Budget 2027 (6 October 2026) widens the 20% band for a single person to €46,500, raises the personal, employee and earned income tax credits from €2,000 to €2,125, and lifts the top of the 2% USC band to €30,300 from 1 January 2027 (Chartered Accountants Ireland). The minimum wage rises to €14.94 an hour, about €30,298 a year at 39 hours, which keeps full-time minimum wage workers just inside the new 2% USC band.
Is €50,000 a good salary in Ireland?
It is above the middle. €50,000 is more than the median full-year job (€46,305) but less than the average (€54,438). It sits close to the median for someone in their thirties (€50,770) and a little below the median for someone in their forties (€52,692). After tax it is about €39,648 a year, or €3,304 a month, for a single person in 2026.
Whether it feels good depends mostly on housing. The same salary goes much further in Donegal, where the typical weekly wage is a quarter lower than Dublin’s, than in Dublin, where rents are the highest in the country.
How to use these numbers
- Compare like with like. Measure yourself against the median for your age and sector, not the national average. A 26-year-old on €42,000 is above the median for their age group (€40,750).
- Check your job, not just the country. Your occupation explains far more than your county. Search your job title on Am I underpaid? to see where you sit.
- Look at take-home. Above €44,000 the 40% rate applies, so a €5,000 rise on the median salary is worth about €2,600 after income tax, USC and PRSI.
Limits of the data
The CSO’s annual figures come from Revenue payroll records and count each job, so someone with two jobs appears twice. They include part-time jobs and exclude the self-employed. County figures are by where employees live. The quarterly average for Q2 2026 is preliminary and may be revised. Job-level figures on our salary pages are estimates from our model; how they are made is on our methodology page.
Sources
- Central Statistics Office, Earnings and Labour Costs Q1 2026 (Final) and Q2 2026 (Preliminary Estimates), released 25 August 2026: average weekly and hourly earnings, public and private sector.
- Central Statistics Office, Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources 2025, released 6 October 2026: annual earnings (Tables 7.1, 7.4, 7.5), economic sector (Table 3.3), county (Table 6.2).
- National Minimum Wage Order 2025, S.I. No. 472/2025 (irishstatutebook.ie): €14.15 an hour from 1 January 2026.
- Chartered Accountants Ireland, “Budget 2027: income tax measures”, 6 October 2026.
- Revenue, tax rates, bands and USC thresholds 2026; Department of Social Protection, PRSI contribution rates 2026 (SW 14), used in our take-home calculation.