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The pay in Spain has never exactly been great compared to what people are used to earning in the UK, but this has always been offset by the cheap cost of living. However, with prices climbing month after month, Spain is falling further and further behind the rest of Europe in term of wages.

 

Despite numerous minimum wage increase over the last few years, Spanish salaries just aren’t keeping pace with the EU, where pay keeps rising thanks to the growth in countries like Hungary, Poland and Romania.

 

Here in Spain, the average full-time gross reached just €33,700 in 2024. This is according to data published on Wednesday November 12 by Eurostat, the European statistical office, which detailed that this country's average salary is €6,100 below the European average, which stood at €39,808 last year.

 

This means that the average salary in Spain is 15.3% lower than the European average.

 

This gap, far from narrowing, has been steadily widening in recent years. This is the first time the difference has exceeded €6,000 since 2002, the first year included in the statistical series. In 2024, the gap widened by €484 gross per year compared to the European average.

 

Spanish wages have been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride since the euro arrived. During the boom years of the 2000s, salaries here were climbing faster than the European average and by 2009 we'd practically caught up. Back in 2002, the average Spanish salary was about 10% below what Europeans were earning, but within seven years that gap had almost completely disappeared.

 

 

The housing bubble did wonders for wages, pushing them up and up until 2009 when Spanish salaries hit near parity with the rest of Europe. We were looking at €26,169 gross per year adjusted for full time work, while the EU average sat at €26,384. Close enough to call it even, really.

 

Then the 2008 financial crisis hit like a sledgehammer and everything went backwards. Between 2009 and 2020, wages in Spain crept up by a measly 6.4%, which works out to an extra €1,675 per year.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe saw their salaries jump 23.2%, an additional €6,131 annually.

 

In 2024, Spain was the tenth slowest growing country for wages in the EU. Salaries went up 4.6% compared to 2023, just under the EU average of 5.2%. Looking back over 10 years, it gets worse.

 

Spain's cumulative wage growth of 26.2% ranks sixth from bottom, well below the EU's 35.5%. Only France at 23.5%, Finland at 23%, Italy at 16.7%, Sweden at 5.5% and Greece at 5.3% did worse.

 

Having said all that, Spain still sits in the upper half when it comes to actual salary levels, coming eleventh on the list. Luxembourg tops the table at €82,969 gross per year, followed by Denmark at €71,565 and Ireland at €61,051. Then it's Belgium, Austria, Germany, Finland, Sweden and France before you get to us.

 

 

Images: Freepik/Eurostat