The salary average Philippines figure that most readers search for makes a useful headline.
It is not a hiring benchmark.
If you are building a team, you need two lenses: PSA data to understand the official baseline, and Penbrothers benchmarking ranges to estimate what it actually costs to hire and retain skilled talent in the market you compete in.
This guide explains both, then walks through the most commonly hired offshore roles from our database.
Key Takeaways
- Average vs. Benchmark: The national average salary in the Philippines (approx. ₱21,544/month) is a macro-economic figure, not a hiring benchmark. For skilled offshore roles, employers must use role-specific data to remain competitive.
- Global Competition for Talent: Hiring in the Philippines is no longer just a local competition. Companies are now competing with remote-first global firms that can pay in USD, especially for IT, Engineering, and Finance roles.
- The “Support” Spectrum: Customer support costs vary significantly based on complexity. Scripted Tier 1 support remains highly affordable, but Tier 2 troubleshooting and Customer Success Management command much higher market rates.
- Strategic Savings: While salaries for skilled professionals in the Philippines are higher than the national average, they still represent 55% to 75% savings compared to equivalent total employee costs in markets like Australia, the US, or the UK.
- Region vs. Role: While regional minimum wages (like the ₱695 daily rate in NCR) act as a compliance floor, they are largely irrelevant for specialized roles where scarcity and global demand dictate the price.
What “Average Salary” Means in the Philippines
When people ask about the average wage in the Philippines, they want a single number. The problem is that a single number collapses an enormous range of work, from agriculture to software engineering, into one statistic.
It tells you something. It does not tell you enough.
A reasonable starting point is the Philippine Statistics Authority’s Occupational Wages Survey (OWS). The latest release reports an average monthly wage of ₱21,544 in 2024 for full-time, time-rated workers in formal establishments with 10 or more employees (₱20,309 basic pay, plus ₱1,235 allowances).
That figure gives you macro context for the average salary in the Philippines. For anything related to hiring, budgeting, or retention, you need to move past it and into role-based benchmarks.
What PSA Data Can, and Cannot, Tell You
PSA wage statistics help you understand the wage environment. They can answer questions like whether wages are generally rising or stable, which industries pay more in the formal economy, and how wide the spread is between regions.
What they cannot tell you is what you should offer a mid-level accountant, a customer support specialist, or a software developer in a competitive hiring market. The Philippine average income reported by the PSA was never designed for that purpose, and using it that way will lead you to underbudget for the roles that matter most.
What Companies Actually Pay for Skilled Roles
Penbrothers maintains an internal benchmarking database that powers our Offshore Staffing Calculator. These figures are built for practical hiring conversations, not economic overviews.
To keep the data honest and usable, this article uses conservative language. “Penbrothers benchmarking ranges” reflects internal benchmarking methodologies and market observations. Exact costs still vary by candidate seniority, niche expertise, shift requirements, and market competition.
The Most Commonly Hired Offshore Roles in the Philippines
Below are the functions that show up most often in offshore hiring plans. Each section includes a table that pulls from the live Penbrothers benchmarking database.
Accounting and Finance Roles
Finance and accounting roles remain a core offshore use case because the work is structured, recurring, and process-driven. The average salary Filipino companies offer for these roles varies, but global employers competing for the same talent tend to anchor higher.
How to interpret this: If you are hiring for accuracy, controls, and deadline-driven work, you are competing for talent that can keep books clean, close on time, and reduce rework. That pushes you toward market-aligned annual cost benchmarks, not the national wage average.
Customer Support and Customer Success Roles
Customer support is still one of the most common entry points into offshoring. But the wage range widens quickly when the role moves from scripted support to product expertise, Tier 2 troubleshooting, or customer success ownership.
How to interpret this: Support is not one job category. Complexity, tools, and decision-making authority change the market rate, and the retention risk, fast.
IT and Engineering Roles
Technical roles are priced by scarcity and global competition. When looking at the average IT salary in the Philippines, the spread between junior and senior engineers can be dramatic, and the numbers climb further when the role requires production-grade delivery.
How to interpret this: You are not only competing with local employers. You are competing with remote-first companies anywhere in the world that can hire the same person and pay them in dollars.
Marketing and Creative Roles
Marketing roles are increasingly offshored, especially for performance execution, SEO support, lifecycle operations, and creative production. The average earnings Philippine marketers command depend heavily on whether the role is execution or strategy.
How to interpret this: You can hire execution-focused talent at lower costs, but strategic operators price closer to the value they produce, especially in paid media, lifecycle, and SEO.
Admin and Operations Roles
Operations roles cover a wide range, from admin execution to process ownership. When the role becomes cross-functional and decision-heavy, the annual cost rises accordingly.
How to interpret this: The best operations hires buy you time. They also reduce mistakes, escalation, and context switching, which is why the market price is rarely “cheap.”
Sales and Revenue Roles
Sales roles are increasingly offshore-friendly when the process, coaching, and tooling are strong. Compensation planning should account for both annual cost and performance expectations, because the average PH salary for sales talent only tells part of the story.
These functions are the most common starting points in offshore hiring plans, and they map cleanly to the roles maintained in the Penbrothers benchmarking database.
How to interpret this: A lower annual cost is only a win if output, conversion rates, and pipeline quality hold up. Cheap and unproductive is expensive.
Regional Salary Variations and Minimum Wage Shifts
Regional wage floors vary, and they matter more for entry-level roles than for skilled, globally competitive positions. Still, they affect expectations, cost of living pressure, and retention across the Philippines’ wages average.
Below are the latest minimum wage snapshots by region.
National Capital Region
The private sector daily minimum wage in NCR currently ranges from ₱658 to ₱695, based on the latest wage order published by the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC). The domestic workers minimum wage sits at ₱7,800 per month under the latest NCR domestic worker wage order.
Selected Regional Reference Points
These rates move over time and can differ by area classification and sector. The NWPC remains the source of truth for current wage orders, daily minimum wage rates, and regional references.
- CAR: Refer to the current wage order via NWPC.
- Region IV-A (CALABARZON): Refer to the region’s RTWPB wage order schedule and PDFs via NWPC.
- Region VII (Central Visayas): Refer to the region’s RTWPB wage order schedule and PDFs via NWPC.
- BARMM: Refer to the latest published wage order via NWPC.
Practical takeaway: For skilled roles, region matters less than role scarcity and competition. For entry-level and early-career roles, region and wage floors influence what candidates will accept and what they should.
What Is a Good Salary in the Philippines in 2026?
A “good salary” depends on three things: role and skill scarcity (how hard it is to replace the person), seniority (how much autonomy and problem-solving the role demands), and market competition, which now includes local employers, offshore providers, and fully remote global companies all drawing from the same talent pool.
If you are using the phrase “average salary Philippines” as your anchor, you are likely under-budgeting for skilled roles. The widgets above are the reality check.
Philippines Wages Versus Global Markets
The Philippines remains attractive because cost structures differ, but the gap is not unlimited and it narrows every year. Skilled wages rise fastest when global demand pulls talent upward, when remote work expands the opportunity set, and when local competition increases for the same roles.
If you want predictable output, plan around annual total employee cost benchmarks. Then build your retention strategy around management systems, workload design, and career progression, because salary alone has never been enough to keep good people.
Get Role-Level Numbers Fast
If you want help validating a proposed budget, align the roles and levels first, then sanity-check against the benchmarks before you start recruiting.If you want a quick, practical read on what it will cost to build your team, talk to us.
Frequently Asked Questions
The PSA average (approx. ₱21,544) includes all sectors, including agriculture and informal labor. A hiring benchmark, such as those from the Penbrothers database, reflects the actual cost to attract and retain skilled professionals in competitive industries like IT, Finance, and Marketing.
The savings are substantial. While an Accountant in a market like Australia might have a total annual employee cost of USD $77,618, a comparable professional in the Philippines through Penbrothers costs approximately USD $28,408, representing a 63% saving.
Technical roles are priced by global scarcity. Because these developers can work for any company worldwide from their homes, their salaries are driven upward by global demand. A Full-stack Developer in the Philippines now averages an annual cost of USD $38,700, which is still 67% less than Western counterparts.
For entry-level or administrative roles, regional wage floors (like those in NCR or Central Visayas) matter. However, for specialized or remote roles, the “region” is less important than the candidate’s skill set. To secure top talent, you must pay based on role scarcity rather than local minimum wage.
No. While a “good salary” is necessary to be in the game, retention is driven by the total package. This includes mandatory benefits (like 13th-month pay), HMO coverage, workload design, and a clear path for career progression within the remote team structure.
