Who earns the most in France? Official stats and job listings reveal best-paying jobs
France is the world's seventh-largest economy, with a projected GDP of $3.21 trillion (€2.74 trillion) in 2025, ranking third in Europe according to IMF estimates from April 2025.
Residents across the country are seeking well-paid, high-quality employment opportunities.
France also remains one of the top destinations for immigrants—ranking behind Germany and Spain in total arrivals from both within and outside the EU, according to Eurostat. Whether highly skilled or not, newcomers are also in search of better job prospects and improved living standards.
So, what are the best-paying jobs in France? Which professions offer the highest salaries, and what are the average annual earnings for top jobs in France?
Euronews Business explores the highest-paying jobs in France, using two complementary sources that shed light on different dimensions of the labour market.
● The monthly average net salaries for 2023 from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) (They were converted to annual figures by multiplying the monthly values by 12). These figures cover private sector employees only and exclude those working in the public sector.
● Job postings from global hiring firm Indeed, covering annual gross earnings from May 2024 to April 2025.
Five main sectors dominate the top 50 highest-paying jobs in France according to INSEE.
Aviation leads all sectors with an average salary of €111,600, driven by highly specialised roles in civil aviation, in particular pilots.
Corporate roles such as managers and directors have an average of €92,000, the highest among multi-role sectors.
Healthcare follows with €84,600, including dental surgeons and non-hospital doctors.
Legal and finance sectors also rank high, averaging over €70,000.
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A closer look reveals that, unsurprisingly, managers of large companies with 500 or more employees top the list, earning nearly €200,000 in average net annual salary. They are followed by executives in financial markets (€132,000), administrative, financial, and commercial managers in large companies (€127,200), and managers of medium-sized businesses with 50 to 499 employees (€123,600).
All of these roles reported average net earnings above €120,000 in 2023.
Civil aviation technical and commercial flight officers and executives—including airline pilots—also surpass the €100,000 mark, with average net annual salaries of around €116,000.
This totals only five jobs with average net annual earnings over €100,000.
Lawyers (€99,600) and technical directors of large companies (€98,400) come close to the €100,000 threshold.
Dental surgeons (€87,600) and salaried non-hospital physicians (€81,600) also rank among the top 10 highest-paying jobs in France.
Engineers in various roles, including management positions, are also well-paid in France and are well represented in the top 50 list. The IT sector likewise features prominently among the highest earners.
Despite the widespread impact of digital disruption on media outlets, newspaper directors, press administrators, and publishing directors—across literary, musical, audiovisual, and multimedia sectors—remain well remunerated, ranking 22nd with an average annual net salary of €57,600.
Besides lawyers, legal experts are also in the top 50 list with €51,600 annual salary.
These figures represent average salaries, not medians—meaning the range can be quite wide in some sectors, especially where experience plays a significant role.
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Job postings on Indeed are also useful for observing recent wage trends; however, they reflect gross salaries (before deductions), unlike the net figures provided by INSEE.
Dentists top the list with the highest annual median salary at €95,000, followed by orthodontists earning €78,750.
In the tech sector, network architects receive €72,361, while medical agents in the healthcare field make €70,000. Average salaries are also available in the chart below.
A compliance officer in production & manufacturing earns €67,500. Roles like domain manager and sales agent follow, with salaries of €65,000 and €64,855 respectively. The digital transformation consultant and mechanical designer earn €62,750 and €62,500.
Several positions report identical median salaries of €60,000, including engineering director, real estate salesperson, operations director, senior sales representative, account executive, production director, human resources director, cloud architect and loan broker advisor.
The occupation 'Physicians & Surgeons' is excluded from the Indeed dataset, prompting a separate analysis.
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While some jobs are emerging, others are gradually disappearing. Artificial intelligence has already begun to reshape the job market and the skills in demand.
'Over the next 5-10 years, we anticipate that green energy, AI/GenAI, cybersecurity, and biotechnology will produce new top-earning job titles,' Pawel Adrjan, director of economic research at Indeed, told Euronews Business.
'Roles like AI ethicist, key sustainability roles, GenAI engineers, and climate data analysts are gaining traction and are likely to move into the upper salary echelons as demand for specialised expertise in these areas grows,' he added.
Adrjan also noted that attending a top-ranked university can certainly enhance job prospects and salary potential. However, he added that recent trends observed on Indeed in both the UK and France indicate that formal education requirements are appearing less frequently in job postings—particularly in high-skill fields such as IT and data science—pointing to a gradual shift toward skills-based hiring.
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