Looking For A High-Earning Career? PSA Just Listed The Top-Paying Jobs In The PH

Who earns the most in the Philippines? The latest Occupational Wages Survey from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) shows one clear winner for several years now: air transport professionals. They still dominate the top-earning roles, leaving every other occupation far behind.

Aircraft pilots and associate professionals earned a massive P137,999 per month, the highest among full-time time-rated workers in the country. The only other groups to break past the six-figure mark are air traffic safety electronics technicians at P131,536 and chemical engineers in the petroleum products sector at P101,996.

Mathematicians, programmers, and software developers round out the upper ranks across industries like telecommunications and insurance—basically the kind of jobs your parents told you to consider (and judging by the numbers, they may have had a point).

According to the OWS, the highest-paid workers in specific industries are the following:

1. Aircraft pilots and associate professionals (Air Transport) – P137,999

2. Air traffic safety electronics technicians (Air Transport) – P131,536

3. Chemical engineers (Manufacture of Coke and Refined Petroleum Products) – P101,996

4. Mathematicians and actuaries (Insurance and Pension Funding) – P99,154

5. Applications programmers (Insurance and Pension Funding) – P96,360

6. Web and multimedia developers (Motion Picture & Media) – P79,064

7. Applications programmers (Information Service Activities) – P73,804

8. Mathematicians and actuaries (Telecommunications) – P71,237

9. Software developers (Publishing Activities) – P66,180

10. Industrial and production engineers (Electricity & Power Supply) – P65,806

Industry-wise, the Information and Communications offered the most lucrative pay in 2024 with an average monthly wage of P43,676, followed by Professional, Scientific, and Technical Activities at P36,096 and Electricity, Gas, Steam, and Air Conditioning Supply at P35,188. Meanwhile, workers in Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing remained at the bottom of the pay scale with P14,615 per month.

Where you work also mattered. Employees in National Capital Region (NCR) continued to earn the highest wages in the country at P29,310, which is nearly triple the averages seen in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which posted the lowest at P11,495.

CALABARZON and Central Visayas followed NCR as the next highest-paying regions.

The PSA also highlighted a notable shift in the gender wage gap: female workers earned slightly more than male workers in 2024, averaging P22,236 versus P21,009, respectively. Eleven out of 17 regions showed higher wages for women, with the largest differences in Davao Region, Western Visayas, and NCR.

This article originally appeared on Spot.ph. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.