IT Salaries in Romania Rose 5% in 2026. Inflation Was 10%
IT salaries in Romania averaged RON 8,000 net a month in the first half of 2026, up 5% year-on-year, still the best-paid sector in the country. With June inflation at 10.4%, that 5% raise is a 4.9% pay cut in real terms, which is why the average IT candidate now asks for RON 11,993, half again as much as the market pays.
Romanian IT used to be the sector where pay outran everything else. In 2026 it’s the sector with the widest gap between what candidates ask for and what employers offer, 50%, the largest of any field eJobs tracks.
If you’re hiring engineers in Romania, you’ve had this conversation. A candidate opens with a number that looks 40% too high, and the temptation is to write them off as unrealistic. Some of that number is inflation arithmetic they did and you didn’t. Most of it isn’t. This piece separates the two, so you know which part to concede and which part to push back on.
We’re former software engineers running technical searches out of Timișoara. These figures are what we take into offer conversations every week.
Key Takeaways
- Romanian IT salaries averaged RON 8,000 net in H1 2026, up 5%, but June inflation ran 10.42%, making it a 4.9% real-terms cut (eJobs/Salario, INS).
- Candidates ask RON 11,993 on average, a 50% gap, the widest of any Romanian sector, ahead of insurance (42%) and banking (~40%).
- Inflation explains only about a tenth of that gap. Holding last year’s purchasing power costs RON 8,413; candidates are asking RON 11,993.
- Employers can hold their offers because the market moved their way: job postings fell 15% in H1 2026 while applications rose 27% to a record 6.7 million, roughly 61 applications per opening.
- For a company paying in euro, none of this made Romania more expensive. The leu depreciated by roughly as much as salaries rose.
What IT salaries in Romania actually paid in the first half of 2026
IT holds first place in Romania’s sector ranking, and the gap to second place is wide. These are net monthly averages for the first half of 2026, from Salario, the salary comparator run by eJobs, covering the first half of 2026.
| Sector | Average net salary (RON/month) |
|---|---|
| IT | 8,000 |
| Oil and gas | 7,000 |
| Research and development | 6,800 |
| Construction and installations | 6,500 |
| Engineering, telecom, audit, naval/aeronautics | ~6,000 |
| Services | 5,500 |
| Transport and logistics | 5,000 |
| Food industry | 4,500 |
| Call-centre and BPO | 4,400 |
| Retail | 4,300 |
For context, the national average net wage was RON 5,684 in May 2026, up 3.2% year-on-year (INS). IT pays about 41% above that.
Two caveats before anyone budgets off this table. First, RON 8,000 is a sector-wide average across every IT role and seniority: support, QA, junior, principal, all of it. It is not a developer salary and it is not a senior salary. Our 2026 Romanian IT salary bands break it down by role and experience level, and the spread is large.
Second, Salario is fed by user-submitted data, not an INS survey. Treat it as a well-populated market signal, not a census.
Why a 5% raise is a 4.9% pay cut
Romania’s annual inflation rate was 10.42% in June 2026, down from 10.9% in May, but still more than three times the EU average. Services led at 13.67%, non-food goods at 12.29%, food at 5.75%.
Run the arithmetic on the IT number:
| H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average net salary | RON 7,619 (derived) | RON 8,000 | +5.0% nominal |
| Same pay in 2025 money | RON 7,619 | RON 7,245 | −4.9% real |
| What H1 2026 pay needed to be to stand still | n/a | RON 8,413 | shortfall of RON 413 |
The H1 2025 figure is derived from the reported 5% growth rate, not a separately published number.
This isn’t specific to IT. INS put the real earnings index at 93.1 in May 2026, the average net wage bought 6.9% less than a year earlier. In April, real wages fell 6.5% year-on-year, the steepest drop in a decade. Roxana Drăghici, head of sales at eJobs, put it plainly when the data came out: raises were, in most cases, at about half the level of inflation, so purchasing power fell even where pay rose most.
The cause is mostly fiscal, not market. Romania’s standard VAT rate rose from 19% to 21% on 1 August 2025, reduced rates were consolidated at 11%, and excise duties went up on fuel, alcohol, and tobacco. That’s a one-off shift in the price level working its way through twelve months of year-on-year comparisons.
Reality check: a raise below 10.4% in Romania in 2026 is a pay cut. Your candidate knows this. Pretending the nominal number is the real number is the fastest way to lose credibility in an offer conversation.
The 50% expectation gap, decomposed
The IT candidate asking price averages RON 11,993 net against RON 8,000 offered, a gap of RON 3,993, or 49.9%. That’s the widest of any sector eJobs tracks. Insurance runs 42%, automotive, legal, and banking around 40%, and the all-sector average is 30%.
Here’s the part nobody published: how much of that gap is inflation?
A year ago the sector average was RON 7,619. To buy today what that bought then costs RON 8,413. The average IT salary is RON 8,000, so inflation has opened a RON 413 hole — RON 413 of the RON 3,993 gap.
Inflation accounts for roughly 10% of the expectation gap. The other 90%, about RON 3,580, is something else.
That something else breaks down three ways, in order of how often we see it:
- Anchoring on 2021–2022. The IT boom set expectations that the market stopped paying two years ago. Salary growth in the sector has been decelerating since 2024, and 2026 is the slowest year in the series at around 5%.
- Seniority mismatch. A mid or senior engineer comparing themselves to the sector average is comparing themselves to the wrong number, and often quoting a figure that’s genuinely correct for their band. Check the band before you call the ask unrealistic.
- Move premium, not raise premium. People don’t change jobs for a cost-of-living adjustment. A candidate who moves expects a step change, and RON 12,000 against a RON 8,000 sector average is a rational opening position, not a fantasy.
Only the first of those three is worth arguing with. The second is your homework, not theirs. Want the band before the call rather than after it? Our salary benchmarking work exists for exactly this.
Why employers can hold the line on IT salaries right now
The other half of this story explains why most companies will keep paying RON 8,000 and not RON 12,000: the market moved in their favour during exactly the same period.
eJobs’ H1 2026 labour-market data shows the shift:
- Job postings: down 15% year-on-year, at roughly 110,000 new listings
- Applications: up 27% to more than 6.7 million, the highest level since 2021
- Ratio: about 61 applications per opening
Fewer roles, far more people chasing them. In that market, employers don’t need to meet a 50% ask, and most won’t.
Here’s the uncomfortable part for anyone reading that as a green light. An advantage on volume is not an advantage on the roles that are hard to fill. Sixty-one applications per opening is an average across retail, BPO, logistics, and IT support.
It is not what happens when you open a Kubernetes platform engineer role or a senior ML engineer position. Those candidates are not in the queue, they are not applying, and the market data that makes you feel comfortable holding at RON 8,000 has almost nothing to do with them. That’s the gap between reading a market report and running a search in it, and it’s why we do headhunting for the scarce roles instead of posting ads and counting applications.
If you pay in euro, Romanian IT salaries barely moved
For a company hiring into Romania from outside, the local inflation story is real for your team’s morale and almost invisible on your cost line. The leu moved too.
| Reference | EUR/RON |
|---|---|
| 2025 annual average | 5.0431 |
| July 2026 monthly average | 5.2378 |
| Change | leu weaker by ~3.9% |
A 5% nominal rise in RON against a leu that lost roughly 4% against the euro leaves the euro cost of a Romanian engineer close to flat year-on-year. Romania did not get more expensive in 2026. Local purchasing power fell.
That distinction matters for how you spend. This isn’t a cost problem, it’s a retention problem, and retention problems don’t get solved by the same offer you made last year. If you’re building or scaling a team here, our remote hiring playbook for Romania covers the structural side, and the wider CEE hiring picture in 2026 puts Romania against its neighbours.
The playbook: running the salary conversation in 2026
Six things that work in this specific market, in this specific year.
- Benchmark the band, not the sector average. RON 8,000 is the wrong number for almost every individual hire. Know the role-level band before the first call.
- Ask the expectation question in the first conversation. Net RON, monthly, as a range. Not at offer stage. A 50% average gap means late discovery wastes three weeks of everyone’s time.
- When the gap is inflation catch-up, name it and split it. It’s about a tenth of the ask, not half of it. Saying “10.4% inflation is real, here’s what we can do about it” concedes something specific instead of everything or nothing.
- When the gap is 2022 anchoring, show the data. Sector growth of 5% in 2026, decelerating since 2024. That’s a conversation, not a rejection.
- Use the levers that aren’t base salary. Meal vouchers, private medical, and a clear review cycle with a stated date move this cohort. Vague “we review annually” does not, not when annual inflation is double digits.
- Close the loop fast when the gap won’t close. Some asks are genuinely out of range. Say so within 48 hours. No radio silence.
Frequently asked questions
What is an IT salary in Romania worth in 2026?
The IT sector average was RON 8,000 net per month in the first half of 2026, according to eJobs/Salario, the highest of any sector in Romania, ahead of oil and gas (RON 7,000) and R&D (RON 6,800). That’s a sector-wide average across all roles and seniorities; individual bands for developers, DevOps, and data roles run considerably higher.
Did Romanian IT salaries actually rise this year?
In nominal terms yes, by 5%. In real terms no. June 2026 inflation was 10.42%, so the average IT salary lost about 4.9% of its purchasing power year-on-year. Across the whole economy, INS put real earnings 6.9% below where they were a year earlier in May 2026.
Why do IT candidates ask for 50% more than employers offer?
Because roughly a tenth of it is inflation catch-up and the rest is anchoring, seniority mismatch, and the standard premium people expect for changing jobs. Matching last year’s purchasing power takes RON 8,413, not RON 11,993. Everything above RON 8,413 is the negotiable part.
How big does a raise need to be to keep pace with Romanian inflation?
About 10.4% to match June 2026 annual inflation, or 9.8% to match the twelve-month average through June. Anything below that is a real-terms pay cut, however it reads on the payslip.
Are Romanian IT salaries still cheap for a company paying in euro?
Effectively yes, and roughly as cheap as last year. Romanian IT pay rose 5% in RON while the leu weakened about 4% against the euro between the 2025 average and July 2026, leaving euro-denominated costs close to flat. The pressure is on local purchasing power, not on your budget.
The bottom line
Romanian IT salaries in 2026 are the highest in the economy and worth less than they were a year ago. Both facts are true, and only one of them shows up on a payslip.
What to take into your next offer conversation:
- RON 8,000 net is the sector average, not a role benchmark. Use the band.
- 10.4% inflation means a sub-10% raise is a pay cut, and your candidate has done that maths.
- The 50% gap is about 10% inflation and 90% everything else. Concede the first part, discuss the second.
- 61 applications per opening doesn’t apply to scarce roles. DevOps and Data/AI candidates are not in that queue.
- In euro terms, nothing got more expensive. Treat this as a retention question, not a cost question.
We run technical searches in this market every week, Cloud/DevOps, Data/AI, and technical leadership, and we go into every offer conversation with the role-level band, not the sector average. If you’ve got a role open where the expectation gap is already costing you candidates, tell us what you’re hiring for and we’ll give you a straight read on what it takes to close in this market.
Data sources: eJobs/Salario H1 2026 sector salary report (via Romania Insider and Business24); INS inflation data for June 2026; INS real earnings index, May 2026; eJobs H1 2026 labour market report; BNR exchange rate archive; EY Romania tax alert on the August 2025 VAT change. Last updated: August 12, 2026.