The pay gap between Madrid and Catalonia remains unstitched. According to the last study on salary evolution prepared by EADA Business School and the consultant Issabased on a sample of 80,000 salary data and relative to 2025, los running of the central community receive on average about 1,860 euros more per year than Catalans. Based on the figures in the report, this is the average difference taking into account the three ranks examined by the business school (managers, middle managers and employees or rank-and-file workers). It is not the first time that Madrid surpasses Catalonia, according to the authors of the study.
If the highest hierarchical job category is taken into account, the gap between both regions is more pronounced [ver gráfico]. If Madrid managers earn 95,528 euros annually, their Catalan counterparts earn 92,443 euros. Despite its persistence, this gap is reduced in intermediate and basic positions. These differences can be linked to the so-called capital effect. which causes the concentration in Madrid of the majority of large companies’ headquarters and acts as a magnet for high-level professional and technical services (and high emoluments).
On the other hand, the communities with the greatest salary dynamism, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islandscoincide with regions of greater migratory attraction and population growth, rather than with clear improvements in per capita productivity. On the other hand, the autonomy that has experienced the greatest growth in remuneration in 2025 for managers has been Aragón with 2.49%; Asturias for middle managers with 2.87%, and the Balearic Islands for employees with 9.98%.
Real purchasing power
Apart from this comparison by region, the EADA and Icsa report provides other conclusions. The results of the 2025 edition highlight that employees account for the largest salary increase last yearwith an increase of 5.50%, placing the average salary at 28,577 euros, while managers experience an improvement of 1.59%, placing the average at 90,246 euros per year. For their part, middle managers register a more moderate evolution, with an increase of 0.25%, which corresponds to 105 euros per year on average in absolute value.
Putting the spotlight on it, the worst-off workers are those who occupy an intermediate rank between high positions of responsibility and those recently hired. Since 2007, The purchasing power of intermediate positions is the one that has the greatest wear and tear.
The evidence points to a phenomenon of organizational flattening and partial replacement of functions due to digitalization and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI), especially in sectors such as banking. In this sense, middle management is positioned between managers supported by technology and increasingly technical employees.
All this taking into account that the numbers point to an accumulated loss of purchasing power since 2007, except for the six-year period between 2016 and 2021, and which has intensified due to the most recent inflationary episodes, triggered above all by the war in Ukraine and global tensions in supply chains. According to the historical analysis (2007-2025), accumulated inflation stands at 43.5%, and Employees are the only group that has managed to beat the price indexwith a cumulative increase of 45.89%.
“Spain creates employment and economic volume, but it does not translate into a proportional improvement in productivity per worker. This gap explains that, despite GDP growth, real wages do not advance at the same pace and the loss of purchasing power continues to be a constant,” he argues Anton-Giulio Manganelliprofessor of strategy at EADA.
SMEs set an example
In all professional categories, especially in the case of employees [ver gráfico], Small companies are the ones that have assumed the greatest remuneration effort in the last year. SMEs are allocating a high cost from their margins to be more competitive and attract, retain and motivate talent in a scenario of scarce qualified labor.
The report highlights this fact as something positive, but also points out that “it may be a drain on the activity of smaller companies in the future.” “It is necessary to abandon linear salary increases unrelated to productivity and move towards more flexible and sustainable compensation modelswhich incorporate non-monetary elements such as flexibility, teleworking or continuous training, key to reducing turnover and strengthening competitiveness in uncertain environments,” he points out. Ernesto Povedaexecutive president of Icsa.
Banking, in the lead
Banking continues to be, for another year, the sector that registers the best remunerationsexcept in the category of employees, which is surpassed by the industry, with a difference of 1,368 euros. On the contrary, commerce and tourism have the lowest salaries in all the categories analyzed. In particular, in the employee category, the industrial and banking sectors continue to be the best paid, with 31,597 euros and 30,229 euros on average, respectively.
On the contrary, the employees in the commercial and tourism sector are the lowest paidwith 20,228 euros on average. Although it is the segment that experiences the greatest increase when compared to the average salary in 2024.
