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Swiss financial services execs earn top pay

Swiss financial services execs earn top pay

Danny Romero
| January 22, 2025
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Financial services executives and senior managers in Switzerland are earning the highest salaries, followed closely by top HR leaders, according to the 2025 Michael Page Salary and Hiring Insights Guide.

The guide showed that jobs in metals trading, tax law and sales showed the highest average salary increases of between 18-25% over the last 12 months.

Metals traders saw a rise of 25%, tax lawyers reported a 20% increase and multilingual sales managers saw an 18% boost.

Geopolitical events, supply chain disruption and fluctuating demand have caused significant volatility in the commodities markets. This volatility has created opportunities for traders to generate higher profits, leading to increased compensation as companies must secure their supply chain in such volatile times, the guide noted.

Legal positions and associates are in demand due to the slowing economy, with only moderate growth forecast for 2025. As a result, there is a need for positions in legal to deal with the accompanying growing amount of legal challenges. This increased demand has exerted upward pressure on salaries for these positions.

Furthermore, organisations are strengthening their sales teams to leverage revenue streams and mitigate the effects of the economic slowdown by recruiting more sales professionals. Positions such as sales managers, sales engineers, and technical sales specialists have become highly sought after.

Other sectors showing average salary increases of 10% over the last 12 months principally hail from the financial services industry. Banking compliance officers and accountants have seen their average salaries increase by 11%. Likewise, key insurance roles, such as senior insurance account managers and in-house pension fund have seen average salary increases of 11%.

Yannick Coulange, managing director of Michael Page Switzerland, said in a press release, “There is a strong demand for candidates who can tackle business challenges and achieve ambitious sales targets. The demand for professionals in critical sectors like IT, which focus on cost reduction and business process optimisation, remains robust.”

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, the guide noted.