Average regular monthly earnings1 were 758 thousand ISK in 2024. For full time employees, regular monthly earnings were 845 thousand ISK and the median 753 thousand ISK. Approximately 65% of full-time employees received regular monthly earnings below the average. This is due to the distribution of earnings. The lowest earnings are distributed over a much smaller interval than the higher earnings, therefore the highest earnings have a much stronger effect on the average than the lowest earnings.
Mean total monthly earnings for full-time employees were 984 thousand ISK in 2024. Half of all full-time male employees had total monthly earnings over 938 thousand ISK while half of full-time female employees had total monthly earnings over 826 thousand ISK. Full-time male employees received more paid hours on average than full-time female employees, as the paid hours for men were 177.9 per month on average in 2024 but 172.0 for women. More paid hours on average for males explains partly why males have higher total earnings than females. In addition, the Icelandic labour market is very gender-segregated with for example approximately 38% of employed women working in the public sector but only 14% of employed men.2
Directors and chief executives had the highest earnings
Wage comparison between occupations3 shows that directors and chief executives had the highest earnings on average, just over 2.4 million ISK per month in 2024. Judges, medical doctors, production and operations department managers in business services enterprises, securities and finance dealers and brokers, airtraffic controllers, senior government officials and research and computing service department managers are some examples of occupations where total monthly earnings were more than 1.7 million ISK on average. Lowest monthly total earnings, on average, were in the occupations of library, mail and related clerks, 573 thousand ISK, hand-launderers and pressers, 578 thousand ISK, and among child-care workers, 605 thousand ISK.
Distribution of total earnings differ by occupations
In the year 2024, total monthly earnings by occupational group ranged from 706 thousand ISK for general, machine and specialised workers to 1,534 thousand ISK for managers. Distribution of total earnings in occupational groups was different, which can be explained by various occupations within each occupational group, as is the case with managers, which includes both chief executives and department managers.
Distribution of total full-time earnings shows that close to 62% of service workers had wages lower than 750 thousand ISK per month and about 14% recieved total full-time earnings in the range of 550-600 thousand ISK. The distribution of total monthly earnings for clerks was more homogenous compared with other occupations as approximately 67% of full-time clerks received an average of total monthly earnings in the range of 550-850 thousand ISK. A higher distribution in total earnings was visible for specialists, managers and craft workers.
About the data
A set of comprehensive data series on earnings for the Icelandic labour market for the years 2014-2024 has now been published. Information contains earnings by occupational group, sectors and economic activities. In addition, information for more than 200 occupations are published.
Previously published results for 2023 have also been revised and re-calculated. Therefore, changes are visible in the previously published figures for 2023. All figures are preliminary. Results are based on the Icelandic Survey on wages, earnings and labour costs and cover over 94 thousand employees. The survey is a stratified sample survey including legal units with 10 or more employees and data are weighted according to the survey design. The survey covers most of the Icelandic labour market even though certain economic activities are missing. More on the survey and methods can be found in metadata on Statistics Iceland‘s website.
During the year 2019 and 2020, new collective agreements were signed which stipulated, amongst other things, a flat rate wage increase and shortening the working hours. Furthermore, an opportunity to abolished coffee breaks was included. The shorter working hours came into action in the beginning of 2020 in the private sector and 2021 in the public sector. The shortening of the working hours does not affect monthly earnings, but it affects paid hours which are also published. From 2019 paid hours have decreased, both due to the shortening of the working hours and decreased overtime hours.
1 Regular earnings for part-time employees are full-time equivalent.
2 Register based employment by economic sector by years, sex, age groups and origin 2008-2024
3 Occupations for full-time employees which are publised on Statistics Iceland‘s website.