Salaries BCN vs MAD vs Rest of Spain

Why this Article Exists

Salary comparisons by city in Spain make sense again.

For a couple of years, it felt like remote work was about to flatten everything. Location would stop mattering, salaries would converge, and geography would fade into the background. But in 2025, many companies have pushed back towards hybrid or fully on-site models. And with that shift, a familiar reality has returned: when work concentrates in a place, salaries tend to follow the logic of that local market.

Not only because of cost of living, but also due to competition between employers, the types of companies present, the dominant industries, and sheer hiring volume.

This article aims to bring structure to a conversation that often gets stuck in clichés and half-truths: “Madrid pays more.”“Barcelona has better product companies.”“The rest of Spain pays less.”

Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it isn’t. And it’s almost never that simple.

Our goal is to ground this discussion in data that is genuinely useful for three audiences:

• People deciding where to work (or from where to work).
• Companies hiring in Spain or planning to build teams here.
• And, of course, anyone who’s simply curious to know where tech pays best.

The data comes primarily from Manfred’s database (over 120,000 tech professionals), segmented by city, as well as job offers published throughout 2025 that included salary ranges.

When we talk about “salary”, we mean gross annual base salary. Variable compensation and equity are excluded. Many companies do offer bonuses or stock, but those are not always comparable or consistently disclosed. Base salary is the common denominator.

Before diving in, two important caveats.

First: “Madrid”, “Barcelona” and “the rest of Spain” are not three sealed-off worlds. People live in Valencia while working for Madrid-based companies. Some fully remote teams pay the same salary regardless of location, while others apply location-based adjustments. There are even international companies hiring remotely in Spain from San Francisco, like the fine folks at RevenueCat.

To keep this article readable, we generalise and remove extreme outliers.

Second: salary is never just about the city. It’s the result of a mix of location, role, seniority, technology and company type. Madrid and Barcelona don’t pay differently by accident; they do so because they concentrate different kinds of companies and compete for different profiles.

That’s why, before looking at salary tables, we need to understand the tech ecosystems behind each city. Context shapes everything.

Madrid and Barcelona: Two Very Different Markets

Madrid and Barcelona account for a huge share of Spain’s tech employment, but for very different reasons and with very different company profiles.

Depending on the source, the numbers vary. Based on a mix of public data and our own database, Madrid represents roughly 26% (25.9%) of Spain’s tech talent, while Barcelona accounts for about 24% (24.1%). Together, they concentrate around half of all tech professionals in the country. Some estimates even push this figure closer to 60%.

Barcelona: Product First

Barcelona has positioned itself over the years as an international hub for digital product companies. There are many startups and scaleups, but more importantly, a high concentration of businesses where software is the product: SaaS, marketplaces, data platforms, e-commerce and consumer-facing products.

This has a direct impact on both the profiles in demand and how they’re paid.

Technologically, Barcelona tends to favour modern and fairly homogeneous stacks. On the backend, Java, Python and Node.js dominate. On the frontend, React is clearly the standard. In data, there’s strong demand for data engineering and machine learning profiles. In infrastructure, AWS and Kubernetes appear constantly.

This doesn’t mean Madrid lacks these profiles, but the ecosystem as a whole leans more strongly in this direction. For example, demand for Python professionals is significantly higher in Barcelona than in Madrid.

The company landscape also shapes the type of talent sought: product-oriented software engineers, many international profiles from across Europe, full-stack roles, and career paths that grow into tech lead or engineering manager positions within relatively flat organisations.

As a result, some salaries are more closely tied to impact and company stage than to rigid bands. Salary ranges tend to be wider.

Barcelona is also home to three Spanish unicorns: Factorial, Glovo and Perk (TravelPerk), as well as companies like Adevinta, Wallapop, Typeform, SeQura, Wallbox, Novicap and vLex.

This map by Aleix Pérez shows the main tech companies in Barcelona and their density:
https://www.pampam.city/barcelonabased-startups-2024-bdTYWaaprYlK84KOV11V?41.361146,2.096194,12.45

Madrid: Enterprise at Scale

Madrid has a much heavier presence of corporate, enterprise and consulting companies, alongside large tech firms and multinational headquarters or major hubs.

Here, software is often not the core product, but a critical component within large, complex organisations: banking, insurance, telecoms and similar industries.

This is reflected in the most in-demand technologies. Java, .NET and enterprise ecosystems carry significant weight, especially on the backend. Modern frontend and cloud coexist with legacy systems, large architectures and more structured teams.

In data, it’s common to see roles tied to reporting and visualisation, internal platforms and large-scale data environments, particularly in banking, insurance and telecoms.

Company type strongly influences salary structures. In Madrid, rigid bands, clearly defined levels and sharp distinctions by seniority are more common. Certain technical roles, especially those linked to enterprise environments or transversal responsibility, often pay better here than elsewhere in Spain, even when the technology itself is less modern (Mainframe, COBOL, etc.).

On the hiring side, on-site and hybrid models carry more weight than in Barcelona, particularly in corporate environments. This makes Madrid a more localised market in many cases, with companies competing directly for the same talent pool, consistently pushing salaries upward.

That said, Madrid also has a large and growing startup ecosystem. Last year it surpassed Barcelona in the number of startups created, and it hosts unicorns such as Jobandtalent, Cabify, Fever, Devo, Idealista and Copado, along with many others like Seedtag, Clicalia, Playtomic and Civitatis.

It’s also home to major tech hubs for banks and companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Meta, Google and HashiCorp.

Two Ecosystems, Not Two Extremes

Barcelona isn’t “just startups”, and Madrid isn’t “just corporate”. But the proportion of company types differs enough to create distinct ecosystems.

Barcelona concentrates more digital product companies, which shapes its tech stacks, ways of working and team structures. Madrid concentrates more large organisations and enterprise environments, which translates into stability, clearer salary bands and higher pay for very specific roles.

This underlying difference explains much of what we see later in the salary comparison. It’s not really about the city; it’s about the companies that cluster there.

Life Beyond Madrid and Barcelona

Talking about “the rest of Spain” as a single market is also an oversimplification. But talent outside Madrid and Barcelona is far more dispersed, so grouping it helps make sense of the data.

Over recent years, several tech hubs have consolidated with their own dynamics, company profiles and salary ranges that, in some cases, come surprisingly close to Madrid and Barcelona.

Valencia

Valencia has become one of the clearest tech hubs outside Madrid and Barcelona. There’s a good amount of product companies, both local and international, and a growing number of remote or hybrid teams. Stacks tend to be similar to Barcelona’s: JavaScript on the frontend, Node.js and Python on the backend, and a strong cloud presence. Salaries usually don’t reach the very top of Barcelona or Madrid, but they’re not far off for senior profiles, especially when the company isn’t local.

Two more unicorns have come out of Valencia: Flywire and Recover. There’s also a growing ecosystem with companies like Blinkfyre, Guruwalk, MercadonaTech, Voicemod, Maisa, or SesameHR.

Málaga

Málaga has grown significantly as a tech hub thanks to the arrival of multinationals (most notably Google) and international development centers. Here it’s common to find salaries above the average for the rest of Spain, especially in backend, data, and platform roles. The ecosystem is closely tied to large companies, with clear structures and long-term projects.

It does have a talent problem: there aren’t enough people for the number of companies, which mostly hire in hybrid or on-site modes.

Freepik is currently its strongest flagship company.

Bilbao and the Basque Country

In the Basque Country, industry and large enterprises play a bigger role. There are fewer pure startups, but many companies where software is critical to the business. Enterprise technologies, complex systems, and stable teams are common. Salaries tend to be competitive for senior profiles, though with less dispersion than in Barcelona or Madrid.

For years, Lookiero was the most relevant tech company, but it has been overtaken by Multiverse Computing (born in San Sebastián).

Zaragoza

Zaragoza has benefited from its central location and from the presence of tech centers and industrial companies with a strong software component. It’s a smaller market, but with interesting opportunities for backend, data, and infrastructure profiles. Here, salary differences tend to be driven more by company type than by the city itself.

AWS data centers and the Adidas hub, along with consultancies, are the main employers.

Seville

Seville is one of the ecosystem’s hidden gems. Under Málaga’s shadow, it has been steadily growing its tech fabric and has already surpassed it. Although the market is uneven, clearly local salaries coexist with very well-paid roles tied to remote work or international companies. It’s a good example of how the “rest of Spain” can have very wide ranges within the same city.

Kampaoh and Covermanager are two strong examples of its ecosystem.

Galicia

Galicia stands out for a long-standing software company ecosystem and for the normalization of remote work. Many people work for companies outside the region, which makes salaries depend less on the local market and more on the hiring company. This creates some of the highest outliers outside Madrid and Barcelona.

Even so, Vigo and A Coruña are the cities with the highest concentration of tech companies, with Inditex as the main employer.

A More Fragmented Market, Not a Worse One

Outside Madrid and Barcelona there’s less volume of job offers, but not necessarily worse conditions. What changes is dispersion: in these cities it’s easier to find very low salaries and, at the same time, very high salaries for the same role.

Company type (local vs. international, remote vs. on-site) matters more than the city itself.

Salary Comparison by Role and Technology

Now, let’s talk numbers.

The following comparison crosses role and location: Barcelona, Madrid and other Spanish tech hubs. All figures refer to gross annual base salary and are presented as simple ranges, not averages or percentiles.

The goal isn’t precision, but to define what’s reasonable to expect or offer.

Two key ideas help interpret the table:

First, role matters more than city. A senior backend engineer won’t earn the same as a mid-level frontend developer, regardless of location. That said, for the same role and technology, Madrid and Barcelona usually define the market ceiling.

Second, since junior and mid-level salaries tend to converge, the data focuses on profiles with 5+ years of experience.

The table below isn’t meant to answer “how much should I earn exactly,” but something more useful: what differences exist between markets and where the real salary jumps are by role, technology, and location.

Role	Barcelona (€)	Madrid (€)	Rest of Spain (€)
Backend Developer	42,000 – 65,000	42,000 – 68,000	32,000 – 58,000
Frontend Developer	38,000 – 60,000	38,000 – 62,000	30,000 – 55,000
Full-stack Developer	45,000 – 63,000	45,000 – 65,000	32,000 – 56,000
Mobile Developer (iOS / Android)	40,000 – 65,000	42,000 – 68,000	34,000 – 58,000
Data Analyst	35,000 – 55,000	36,000 – 58,000	30,000 – 50,000
Data Engineer	45,000 – 70,000	45,000 – 72,000	35,000 – 62,000
Machine Learning Engineer	45,000 – 75,000	48,000 – 78,000	38,000 – 65,000
DevOps / Platform Engineer	45,000 – 72,000	48,000 – 75,000	38,000 – 65,000
QA / Test Automation	32,000 – 48,000	34,000 – 48,000	28,000 – 45,000
Tech Lead	60,000 – 80,000	65,000 – 85,000	45,000 – 70,000
Engineering Manager	68,000 – 100,000	70,000 – 110,000	50,000 – 80,000
Product Manager	50,000 – 85,000	45,000 – 80,000	35,000 – 65,000
Product Designer	42,000 – 60,000	40,000 – 58,000	32,000 – 50,000

The differences between Madrid and Barcelona often look small, but job listings frequently show ranges that are around €5K higher in Madrid overall.

In data, machine learning, DevOps and platform roles, the gap narrows significantly. These profiles are scarce, transversal and in constant demand across most company types. Here, salary depends far more on responsibility and company context than on the city itself.

Percentile 75 and 90 are higher than the range we show in both cities.

Outside Madrid and Barcelona, patterns shift. For the same role and technology, local companies often pay less, while international or remote-first employers offer salaries close to big-city levels. This makes ranges less predictable and reduces the explanatory power of location alone.

Salary comparison by technology

Technology / Stack	Barcelona (€)	Madrid (€)	Rest of Spain (€)
Java	40,000 – 60,000	45,000 – 65,000	35,000 – 55,000
.NET	38,000 – 55,000	42,000 – 60,000	34,000 – 45,000
Python	48,000 – 72,000	45,000 – 75,000	36,000 – 60,000
Node.js	50,000 – 65,000	45,000 – 68,000	32,000 – 58,000
PHP	32,000 – 50,000	38,000 – 60,000	28,000 – 45,000
React	45,000 – 62,000	45,000 – 65,000	32,000 – 55,000
Angular	36,000 – 50,000	40,000 – 50,000	30,000 – 45,000
iOS / Android	45,000 – 70,000	45,000 – 70,000	34,000 – 58,000

Technology itself introduces real salary differences. Enterprise stacks like Java and .NET tend to reach their highest ceilings in Madrid, driven not by the tech but by the types of companies that rely on it: banks, telecoms and large organisations with long-lived, complex systems.

In Barcelona, product-oriented stacks like Node.js, Python and React dominate. Interestingly, lower-end ranges can exceed Madrid’s, though maximums tend to converge due to corporates and international firms equalising pay.

In other hubs, technology explains more than geography. For highly demanded stacks (data, cloud, platform, Python/Node.js), salaries often approach big-city levels when the employer isn’t local or the role is remote. For more generalist technologies, the lower bound drops more easily.

A clear pattern emerges: the more specialised and critical the stack, the less location matters and the more the employer does.

Company Type: The Real Salary Driver

It’s easy to conclude that Madrid pays more, or that outside the big two salaries are lower. In practice, company type explains a large share of the difference.

Startups, scaleups, mature product companies and large corporates don’t compete in the same talent markets, nor do they operate under the same constraints.

Looking at salaries through this lens often tells a more accurate story than geography alone.

Salary comparison by company type

Company type	Barcelona (€)	Madrid (€)	Rest of Spain (€)
Early-stage startup	35,000 – 55,000	32,000 – 58,000	28,000 – 45,000
Scaleup	45,000 – 85,000	42,000 – 72,000	35,000 – 65,000
Mature product company	50,000 – 85,000	50,000 – 80,000	38,000 – 70,000
Corporate / Enterprise	45,000 – 75,000	50,000 – 80,000	40,000 – 65,000
Tech consultancy	32,000 – 45,000	35,000 – 45,000	30,000 – 40,000
International company (global or EU bands)	55,000 – 90,000	60,000 – 100,000	45,000 – 80,000

Early-stage startups tend to pay less everywhere. Barcelona has many of them, which explains why there are more opportunities but also more constrained salaries, especially for mid or senior profiles without transversal responsibility.

Scaleups and mature product companies are where Barcelona truly shines. Salaries are closely tied to impact and business growth, producing wide ranges and very competitive pay for senior technical roles, often outperforming Madrid.

In corporate and enterprise environments, Madrid usually sets the ceiling. The concentration of large companies, banks and multinationals leads to well-defined bands and higher pay for architecture, platform and technical management roles.

Consulting follows a stable pattern across cities, with Madrid slightly ahead but differences largely negligible.

International companies distort everything. When they apply global or European bands, city matters far less. This is why some of the highest salaries outside Madrid and Barcelona appear in lower-cost hubs, driven by non-Spanish employers.

Remote-First: What Actually Changed

Remote work reshaped the salary market. Pay stopped depending solely on where you live and started depending more on who you work for.

Today, several compensation models coexist.

The first is the classic one: city-based salaries. Companies set different bands for Madrid, Barcelona and other locations. This remains common in hybrid or on-site organisations, especially corporates. Living outside Madrid or Barcelona often means earning less for the same role.

The second model is role-based national bands. Companies pay the same across Spain, regardless of location. This is typical of remote-friendly scaleups and product companies. Even here, bands are usually benchmarked against Madrid and Barcelona, not the national average.

The third, less common but highly impactful, is international or European bands. Salaries are defined outside Spain and local location barely matters. This is where many of the highest salaries outside the big cities come from, and remote work is the norm.

Remote work has narrowed geographic gaps, but it hasn’t erased them. It’s created a more complex market where salary depends less on where you live and more on how your employer structures pay.

One crucial detail: as many companies return to on-site work, hiring has become harder. To compensate, they’re raising salaries. Even so, most tech professionals still prefer remote work, even if it means earning €5–10K less.

What This Means for Candidates and Companies

Data alone doesn’t change anything. What matters is how you use it.

For Candidates

Madrid and Barcelona offer more opportunities, but not necessarily the best ones for everyone. There’s more volume and mobility, which helps with faster growth or stack changes, but also more competition and higher living costs.

This is especially relevant as junior hiring slows down. Outside these cities, opportunities are fewer.

In other hubs, there’s less noise. For senior profiles, particularly in backend, data, platform or technical leadership, working remotely from these cities for external companies can be a very attractive combination: remote work plus high salary. Here, employer matters more than local market.

Technology matters too. Some stacks are more in demand in Madrid, others in Barcelona, and some work well remotely from anywhere. Understanding where each company type concentrates helps focus your search and avoid processes that won’t reach your expected salary range.

This data is also valuable for negotiation. Not to demand an exact number, but to explain why a role with a certain level of responsibility in a given company type typically sits within a specific range. City is just one variable.

For Companies

The most common risk is underpaying based on the assumption that the market is still local. In a world where companies compete nationally or internationally, fixing salaries by city alone excludes a large portion of talent.

If you’re based in Madrid or Barcelona and want top talent, higher-than-average ranges are unavoidable.

Hybrid or on-site models have a cost. If physical presence is required, you compete with every other employer in that city. In Madrid and Barcelona, that means higher salaries or stronger incentives. Ignoring this usually leads to long hiring processes or roles that never close.

You now have the data. More information creates better opportunities. Use it wisely.

If you want to go deeper, Manfred’s 2026 Salary Guide includes detailed breakdowns by role, percentiles and experience.