There is a very specific reason why thousands of Spaniards dedicate years of their lives to prepare oppositions for become public officials. It is not only the job stability that working for public administrations offers. It’s also about salaries.
The numbers confirm this with a clarity that is rarely openly debated: do civil servants have very high salaries or are the salaries of private sector employees those that have been left behind?
It’s not just for stability, it’s also for the salary. According to data of the last Statistics of Average Contribution Bases of the General Regime of Social Security, the average contribution base of Public Administration workers stood at 2,853.5 euros per month in September 2025. The highest level recorded to date. This data, which serves as an average reference for the gross monthly salary, places public employment as the fifth best-paid activity among the 21 categories analyzed by this organization’s statistics.
The most striking thing is not only the amount of the salary, but what it means in comparison with the rest of the sectors. While the average salary in the private sector has remained at the threshold of 2,200 euros per month since November 2024, Administration workers already exceeded 2,800 euros in that same period. This advantage has remained stable and has even grown during 2025.
A gap of 579 euros per month. Putting it into figures, the average difference between what a public employee earns and one in the same activity in the private sector now exceeds 579 euros per month. This implies that the payroll received by Administration officials is 20.3% higher than that of the entire economy.
If only the comparison with workers affiliated to the General Regime is taken into account, this gap rises to 25.46%: This wage gap between the public and private sectors is not new, but it is at a time of maximum expansion. He report from the Bank of Spain that analyzed data from 2021, already placed the advantage of the public sector at 24.97% compared to the private sector, a figure that tripled the average difference in the euro zone between the public and private sectors, placing by just 8%.
According to collected ABC In countries like France this is reduced to 13% compared to the private sector. On the other hand, in Germany, the salaries of civil servants are practically the same, and some civil servants even earn less than their counterparts in the private sector.
Do civil servants earn a lot or have salaries not risen enough? The Ministry of Public Function reached in December 2025 an agreement with CSIF, UGT and CCOO to increase the salaries of the more than 3.5 million public employees in Spain by 1.5%. This increase is part of a plan that foresees accumulated increases of 11% until 2028.
Meanwhile, although the average salary has risen driven by the increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage, these increases only affect the most precarious salaries. The rest of the percentiles have registered more irregular and dependent increases on the collective bargaining by sectors. The result is that, in the last five years, public salaries have grown by 14%, compared to 18% in the private sector. However, the starting base for public employment was already so high that the absolute gap remains unbridgeable. That is, the lowest salaries in the Administration are much higher than those in the private sector.
The Administration is also looking for talent. The attractiveness of public employment is not explained solely by salary. To the economic advantage It adds job stability that the private sector can rarely offer. This explains that, according to a study From the OpositaTest portal, in 2023, 68% of men and 72% of women would exchange a stable job in the private sector for a public position. Furthermore, the public sector maintains its commitment to teleworking flexibility whenever the position allows, while the private sector has moved towards presenceeven if the position allows it.
According what was published by Expansionthe internal distribution of salaries also reveals that in the three highest income deciles, with average salaries of 2,807 euros per month, 3,385 euros and 5,213 euros gross per month, a majority of public employees are concentrated.
On the other hand, only 22% of private sector workers reach these salary ranges. That is to say, public employment is not only better, it also offers a greater probability of accessing the highest salary levels, something that explains why oppositions in Spain They continue to be so disputed.
Image | Unsplash (Beatriz Cattel)
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