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Moving into 2025, we face a strong demand for candidates who can resolve business issues and achieve aspirational sales targets. Multilingual sales experts and tax lawyers have led the field in salary increases over the last 12 months. Meanwhile, the demand for candidates in critical sectors like IT, HR or Finance remains robust.
Roles that are crucial during challenging times, such as metals traders or tax lawyers, are in high demand. This increased demand has exerted upward pressure on salaries for these positions. For example, salaries for metal traders have risen by an average of 25% over the past 12 months. The same thing was true for tax lawyers, whose salaries rose by 24% and 15% for their administrative assistants.
Organisations are focusing on strengthening their sales teams to leverage revenue streams and mitigate the effects of the slowdown. As a result, sales professionals are in strong demand. Positions such as sales managers, sales engineers, and technical sales specialists have become highly sought after. These job categories have seen in surge in salaries of 17-18% over the last 12 months.
As geopolitical tensions have increased, and inflation is forecast to fall to 1%, employers are extremely cautious with headcount and salaries in other areas. At the same time, candidates are circumspect about moving to new jobs in an uncertain environment. As a result, salaries for the majority of roles will remain stagnant.
On the positive side, employer and candidate expectations are more closely aligned than last year. Candidates are aware of the economic situation and the measures undertaken by companies to reduce costs.
While salaries are still the most important factor in any decision to join an employer, the gap between what candidates feel they can demand and what employers are willing to pay has significantly narrowed.
The current uncertainty and caution in the market increase the necessity for flexible solutions. With limited headcounts, these solutions should be seen as opportunities for experienced professionals to take on temporary assignments. They also enable candidates, at the beginning of their careers, to engage in "try-and-hire" roles, where they work for several months before potentially securing a permanent position. In Switzerland, where the market is still predominantly focused on permanent roles, those who perform well in these temporary roles are likely to receive permanent offers once the economy stabilises.
The only area where we see little room for compromise from candidates is around flexibility. Their demand to work remotely has not diminished and has become deeply embedded in workplace culture. It remains a critical criterion for candidates, who will often reject offers that do not include options for remote or flexible work.
This “frontline” research corresponds with our latest Michael Page Talent Trends Study 2024 release in H1 2024. This showed that flexibility and work-life balance are the decisive factors in candidates’ choosing an employer. 69% of Swiss-based employees have hybrid work arrangements – 17 percentage points higher than the European average.
Historically, there has been a timing gap where companies react quickly to macroeconomic changes, and the expectations of employees and candidates. When the market improves, companies are quick to ramp up recruitment, offering attractive packages and employee value propositions. However, they often struggle to understand why candidates are hesitant to change employers. This hesitation is due to a lag period where candidates need time to regain confidence, often influenced by positive stories from friends and relatives.
There is a window of opportunity, while the market is slower and more challenging, to become a better-prepared organisation for the next upturn. So, we recommend that employers use the start of the year to structure their human resources and recruitment processes in preparation for the anticipated upturn. This includes, for example, investing in necessary training, adapting internal competencies, and developing clear value propositions for both current and future employees.
When the market improves, those who have prepared will be better positioned to capitalise on opportunities, gaining market share, revenue growth, and profitability. Conversely, companies that remain closed off or in survival mode during this time will face a competitive disadvantage in attracting talent.
To ensure that employers, employees, and candidates have the most up-to-date information about salary levels, we are pleased to present the Michael Page Salary Guide 2025. This comprehensive guide covers over 585 job types across 15 key sectors and is based on nearly 20,000 hiring interviews, as well as our extensive database of over 415,000 candidates.
We wish you all the best for 2025 and look forward to supporting you in achieving successful, informed salary outcomes.
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Key insights on salaries by sectors and market trends.
