Inspired by this recent thread, I dug deeper into the salary data.

The main info for full-time salaries

• Average: 4,353 € (published, Q3 2026)
• Median: ≈3,860 € today (3,615 € in 2024)
• About 63% of full-time-workers earn less than the average

What job you do is the biggest factor

• Managers: median 7,990 €
• Basic service and labour jobs: median 2,710 €
• Basically 3x the salary on average
• The lowest-paid 10% of managers (4,650 €) still earn more than the best-paid 10% in basic service jobs (3,880 €)

Where you live is one of the least influential things

• Most of the jobs in Finland are in the Greater Helsinki Area -> 37%
• If you can find a job outside that area, you earn basically the same money, but you have a way lower cost of living.

Pay growth over your career depends heavily on the field you work in

First we should acknowledge a lot of the pay difference simply comes from age and therefore year years of experience. Most people don't become "managers" until late in their career. Starting at age 25-29 your salary grows the most in the fields:

• Natural sciences: +62% (maybe because early scientist jobs are so low pay? :P)
• ICT: +50%
• Health and welfare: +12%

Where I got the data

• The only complete dataset I could find from Statistics Finland is from 2024
• I took the partial 2026 data, projected the more complete 2024 data forward, and combined it with my own jobs dataset to try and make the best estimate of the current situation in 2026 (I think it will be still 2 years before Statistics Finland posts the full 2026 data itself)

• All headline figures are gross monthly pay for full-time workers, but you can click to see a net estimate as well and part-time in the explore data area.

• Limit of the data: this compares different people of different ages in the same year, not the same people over time.* So for example people 20 years from now won't probably see the same career growth as people 20 ears older than you now had.

@mods: If there is an issue with this post please let me know so I can fix, I saw you took down the previous salary post that I referenced and want to make sure I'm not repeating whatever their mistake was. Tagged brand-affiliate because the website is my own and politics because salaries are inherently political.

Such a fascinating performance. Can’t just get enough of it right now

There was also an interesting explanation here (in Finnish), in which the poem is interpreted as being about tornadoes: https://www.narvasoft.fi/kalevanpojat/sources/hiidenhirvenhiihdanta.html

My neighbor S. owns a lot (on the top). My neighbor T. on the left and my house on the diagonal lot. The red bars signify the road. The road crosses through my lot into S' house lot (not on the map).

Without warning S. has chopped down pretty much all the trees (in green) that T and us can see from our house, permanently influencing the sunlight and view from our houses. S. has no consequence from this, since his house is further down the road.

Is he allowed to just chop down everything without consulting his neighbors? I'm quite salty, especially since he just chopped down 60+ trees without pre-communication. Neighbor T. is an old guy that has lived there for 80 years, trees that were right in front of his yard that have been there all of his life are now gone. His words in simple Finnish words were " *sigh* it is what it is".

Thanks!

I wasn't expecting any huge happiness, but now I'm feeling depressed, being far from my family.
Studying can be really hard sometimes.
And the worst thing is, money is not a solution.
I just wanted to write down my feelings. Maybe I'm the one with the problem.
If you had asked me 3 months ago whether I was planning to stay in Finland, my answer would have been, "Sure, I'll stay there until I die."
But now I'm not even sure about continuing university.
In another life, if I had been born and raised as a Finn, maybe I would be happy here, but I think this country isn't for me.
Thank you for reading this far.