♦ Nine of the ten sectors with the highest salaries in the economy can be found in both the 2017 and 2026 rankings ♦ The only new field to enter the top is management and management consulting, which replaces energy production and supply.The top ten best-paid sectors of activity in the Romanian economy have changed very little in the last decade. Nine of the fields in the ranking from 2017 are also found in 2026, and the only important change is the entry of management consulting activities into the ranking, according to the data of the National Institute of Statistics (INS) centralized by ZF. The Romanian economy thus kept almost the same champions in terms of salaries. The only new appearance in the top ten sectors is represented by the activities of directorates (headquarters), centralized administrative offices and management and management consultancy activities, a sub-segment of professional, scientific and technical activities. It ranks sixth in the 2026 ranking, with an average net salary of almost 11,600 lei per month, up 4.8% compared to the same period last year. Although the structure of the ranking remained almost unchanged, the order of the top sectors changed. The most important change is at the top of the hierarchy, where oil and natural gas extraction rose from fifth place in 2017 to first place in 2026, overtaking the IT industry. The average net salary in this sector has reached over 15,400 lei per month. You may also be interested: IT remains one of the best-paid fields in the economy, but now occupies the second place, with an average net salary of 14,249 lei in April 2026, an increase of 8.6% compared to the same month of the previous year. The tobacco industry is another sector that has gained ground in the ranking, rising from the place of ninth on fifth place, while management and management consultancy activities enter directly on the sixth position, being the only new field on the top. On the other hand, energy production and supply are out of the ranking of the first ten sectors according to the level of salaries. Other fields have kept their position almost unchanged. Insurance and reinsurance remains in third place in both 2017 and 2026, while publishing and oil extraction services continue to be among the wage elite, even if they have dropped a few positions. Financial intermediation dropped from fourth to seventh place, and air transport went from seventh to ninth place, being the only top sector that registered a slight annual decrease in the average salary during the analyzed period.
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