A year ago, ask for a pay rise It had a certain linear logic: more experience, seniority and a higher job category were equivalent to having access to a higher salary range. The salary comparison guide for the technology sector that Manfred published in 2025 With five large technology companies, it offered a fairly predictable structure, where junior, mid and senior employees followed an upward and uniform trend between companies. Moving up a category guaranteed, almost automatically, that the payroll also improved.
However, the 2026 update From that same study it comes with data from more companies, greater detail in the data and a very different reading of the technological labor market today: salary bands are expanding, categories are multiplying and the gap between what one company or another pays for the same profile is widening. This year, the size and type of the company you work for matters more than the category and seniority of the employee.
Cycle change: from rises to stagnation. One of the most striking changes that emerge from the data provided in the 2026 study Manfred’s view is that some of the participating companies practically copy the previous year’s salary structure. Cabify maintains its salary ranges in line with those of the previous comparison, with levels ranging from 27,000 euros at entry level L1 for the most junior, to 138,000 euros at L6 for senior employees with positions of responsibility.
For its part, the corporate health platform Alan has also offered data to February 2026 date. Its thirteen-level salary structure allows it to achieve small progressive rises in place of large salary jumps with an entry base that has changed little in the last year, but in which it is easier to advance since they are smaller sections.
For example, a level A0 (internship) starts with a salary of between 35,000 and 41,000 euros and a Junior (C0) receives a base salary of between 65,000 and 76,000 euros plus company shares. A senior employee (D) is in a range of between 79,000 and 91,000 euros plus a supplement in shares. The highest levels such as Principal (I) remain between 160,000 and 203,000 euros. In this sense, the health company continues to pay well above the Spanish market average, and that position has not changed one bit compared to 2025.
AI moves the market…and salaries. Although Cabify and Alan remain the same, Factorial goes in the opposite direction and makes the most relevant change in the entire comparison. In 2026, the company has renamed all of its engineering roles by adding “AI” to the job title: Junior AI Engineer, AI Engineer, Senior AI Engineer. It is the first Spanish company to make this move and it is not just a change for posture, it will also be associated with a salary increase in those stripes.
For example, a Staff AI Engineer now charges between 82,300 and 106,950 euros in total gross compensation, compared to between 86,000 and 98,000 euros the previous year. For the Distinguished AI Engineer category it rises from 180,000 to 198,000 euros, now equal to the VP of Engineering. This cape represents a declaration of intentions from Factorial, in which grow as a specialist In AI you have the same salary ceiling as managing teams.
More companies, more context. The main difference between the 2025 study and that of 2026 is that in the previous edition five technology companies were analyzed, but in 2026 their number doubles, incorporating Buffer, Revolut, Datadog, Amazon, New Relic and JOIN to the database. This incorporation radically changes how the technological labor market is read, because the salary differences between the extremes are now much larger than in 2025. That is, salaries do not change, but rather the analysis data is expanded, making it closer to reality.
JOIN, the recruitment platform, has shared its salary ranges with Manfred. So it becomes a new useful reference for the current market. A Senior Engineer on this platform earns between 67,000 and 85,000 euros in base salary. At the other extreme, Datadog places its Senior SWE with an average of 135,000 euros in annual compensation, and Buffer makes public salaries starting at the L3 level with an entry floor for Spain of 129,000 euros.
The company weighs more than the experience. In 2025, moving up from junior to senior almost automatically implied a relevant salary jump, and that logic was consistent between companies. The 2026 study dilutes that pattern. A mid profile can range from 39,000 euros in the lower part of Factorial to more than 80,000 euros in Glovo (its L3 charges 82,800 euros). For senior profiles the dispersion is even greater: from 60,000 euros in the low band of Cabify to 135,000 euros on average in Datadog, with salaries at two speeds that AI only amplifies.
The practical result is that career progression no longer guarantees the same salary jump that it guaranteed in 2025. As indicated in the report 11th Adecco Salary Monitorchanging companies (to a multinational) has more impact than moving up within it. For a Senior profile, the difference between work in a Spanish company and in a multinational with a presence in Spain it can exceed 50,000 euros annually.
More salary transparency imposed by Europe. Behind the new data of this comparison there is an important change that has not gone unnoticed by Manfred experts: the European Salary Transparency Directive (2023/970)which forces companies in Spain to offer salary transparency publishing the salary ranges of their profiles to avoid discrimination, putting end to salary secrecy.
Meanwhile, the Spanish tech ecosystem continues to operate with little salary transparency. According to the report Labor Market Guide 2026 prepared by Hays, the IT sector will see salary increases of 6% in 2026 in Spain, but this average hides the same story as Manfred’s study: the increases are not uniform, and this salary increase will be more noticeable depending on the type of company and the relationship of the position with the development of AI.
Image | Manfred
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