Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources 2024

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (29 July 2025) published Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources for 2024.

Commenting on the data, Dr Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Earnings Analysis division of the CSO said: “Median weekly earnings stood at €730.89 in 2024, up 4.5% on the €699.28 figure in 2023. The median weekly earnings recorded for employments among males (€802.14) in 2024 were almost €150 higher than those among females (€654.07). However, since 2022, median weekly earnings for employments among females have increased by 10.3%, compared with 8.1% among males. It is important to note that data in relation to hours worked is not available in the EAADS dataset, however data provided by the CSO's Labour Force Survey (LFS) can provide further context around average hours worked (QLF 25, QLF 33, QLF 36). Table QLF 33 shows that in Q4 2024, males had higher average hours worked per week (38.4), compared with their female counterparts (32.0). A similar trend was observed across each quarter of 2024.

More than one-fifth of employments (20.1%) recorded earnings of less than €400 per week in 2024. Of those employments earning less than €400 per week, 63.2% were represented by females and 36.8% by males. A considerable portion (38.9%) of the employments in this earnings bracket were among employees aged 15-24 years. In contrast, more than one-tenth (12.3%) of employments recorded weekly earnings of €1,600 or more in 2024, of which 65.2% were male and 34.8% were female. One-third (33.3%) of employments with weekly earnings of at least €1,600 were aged 50 years and over, indicating that earnings tend to increase with age.

Earnings by Economic Sector

Employments in Information & Communication (€1,440.36), Financial, Insurance & Real Estate (€1,027.24), and Public Administration & Defence (€993.09) recorded the highest median weekly earnings in 2024, while those in Accommodation & Food Services (€391.62) and Arts, Entertainment, Recreation & Other Services (€454.34) recorded the lowest. The age profile of employees likely had an impact on the sectoral earnings. While almost two-thirds (63.7%) of employments in the Information & Communication sector were represented by those aged 30-49 years, almost half (49.8%) of employments in Accommodation & Food Services were recorded among those aged under 30 years.

In terms of public and private sector employments, despite a similar annual increase in weekly earnings, 4.7% and 4.6% respectively, the median weekly earnings among public sector employments (€1,009.44) were 52.5% higher than those in the private sector (€661.87) in 2024. Relatively few employments in the public sector were held by the youth; 5.5% of employments in the public sector were recorded among those aged 15-24 years in 2024, compared with 17.0% of employments in the private sector.

Earnings by Nationality

As of 2024, Irish nationals accounted for the largest proportion of employments (72.5%), followed by those from the EU excluding Ireland (12.1%). Irish nationals contributed more than three-quarters (75.5%) of the total earnings in 2024, down 1.1 percentage points since 2023.

Median weekly earnings among Irish nationals stood at €762.72 in 2024, an increase of 4.8% on the previous year. Of the nationalities individually listed in the analysis, Indian nationals were the only group to record a decrease in median weekly earnings (-0.9%), despite recording the highest median weekly earnings (€876.04). It is possible that the decrease in median weekly earnings among Indian nationals was linked to the decrease in the proportion of employments among Indian nationals in Information & Communication (-2.1 percentage points), Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities (-0.8 percentage points), and Financial, Insurance & Real Estate (-0.3 percentage points) since 2023, as these are typically high earning economic sectors.”

Editor's Note

The Earnings Analysis using Administrative Data Sources (EAADS) release presents earnings statistics compiled based on administrative data sources. The primary data source is the Revenue Commissioner’s employee tax data. This is linked to the CSO Business Register and other data to provide economic and demographic breakdowns of employee earnings in Ireland. The data used for this analysis has been restricted to employments that were active in the month of October 2024.

In cases where differences in rounding compared with previously published results are observed, please note that the differences are minimal and are due to the use of new statistical software.