The average salary of members of the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland (TEK) will rise in the next few years purely as a result of successful collective agreement negotiations.
The average salary of an academic engineer in permanent employment was 6,202 euros per month in October 2024. Based on this, the collective agreement for the technology industry, for example, will bring additional euros to pay packets over the next three years, taking into account the raise percentages and their timing: 7,010 euros when calculated on the basis of the general increase alone and 10,578 euros when calculated on the basis of the total increase.
The average monthly salary will rise from 6,202 to 6,517 euros for TEK members who receive only the across-the-board general increase, or even to 6,698 euros if they also receive the local salary component, i.e. the total increase.
“We have had quite a difficult, complex and lengthy round of negotiations, during which I myself visited the National Conciliator more than 20 times. However, the final result is quite acceptable, as we want to see our members’ purchasing power increase,” says TEK’s Labour Market Director Teemu Hankamäki.
According to Hankamäki, the employer side would prefer not to grant greater increases under collective agreements than the predicted inflation rate.
“Salary increase percentages are very important, as 0.1 per cent in either direction easily amounts to several million euros in costs when calculated on the basis of the number of employees covered by the agreement and their salary levels.”
If the salary increases for all highly educated people in Finland are added together, the combined sum will rise to hundreds of millions of euros in the upcoming agreement term.
In addition, collective agreements will continue to guarantee and determine monetary benefits, such as sick pay, holiday pay, paid family leave, working hours and travel allowances.
Hankamäki would even consider the agreements that have now been reached a success, as the last time salary increases of this degree were achieved was during the previous agreement term 2023–2024 and before that back in 2007–2008.
“In other words, these tough, protracted rounds of negotiations do not come cheap for employers. This is a result of the entire labour market and agreement system being challenged, particularly by the employer side, but also by the Finnish government.”