In Korea, finance pays about twice what tech does — and tech isn't even second
Take the median listed company's average pay in each sector. Finance sits at 116 million won a year, roughly double information technology's 58 million. IT holds half the market's value and pays in the middle of the pack.
AI-assisted, human-reviewed sourcing. Figures are pulled programmatically from the official sources listed at the end of this article and checked by an editor before publication.
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The Korean stock market is, by value, a technology market — electronics and chips are more than half of it. So it is worth knowing that technology is not where the market pays best. That is finance, and it is not close.
Finance pays double
Taking the median listed company in each sector, average pay runs from 115.8 million won a year in finance down to 53.7 million in consumer staples. Information technology — half the market’s capitalisation — sits at 57.8 million, near the bottom of the table, paying barely more than supermarkets and less than shipbuilders.
| Sector | Median average pay (₩/yr) |
|---|---|
| Finance | 115,840,575 |
| Materials | 61,618,414 |
| Industrials | 61,015,687 |
| Communication services | 60,857,351 |
| Information technology | 57,843,971 |
| Consumer discretionary | 57,444,444 |
| Health care | 57,139,073 |
| Consumer staples | 53,717,391 |
Finance pays roughly twice what technology does. The heavy-industry sectors — materials, machinery, chemicals — cluster just above IT at around 61 million. Everything from tech down to staples sits in a narrow band between 54 and 58 million; finance stands alone at the top.
Value and pay are different maps
The gap between where the market puts its value and where it pays its people is the point. A KOSPI investor is buying, overwhelmingly, technology. A well-paid Korean is, disproportionately, in finance. The market cap says which companies the market believes in; the pay says which ones share the most with the people inside — and in Korea those are not the same sector.
The caution, as always with a pay column: this is the median company’s average, not any one paycheque, and bonuses and hours vary. But the shape is clear and it does not move under a median. Finance is where listed Korea pays, and technology, for all its weight, is not.
Data & Verification Notes
- Data as of
- Sources
- FSS DART (annual reports) — Average pay per employee, filed by each listed company
- Cross-checks
- Each company files its average pay per employee. The figure shown per sector is the median company in that sector, across 2,644 listed companies sorted into our own scheme from the statistical industry code. Finance's median is 115.8 million won, information technology's 57.8 million
- Between those ends sit materials (61.6m), industrials (61.0m) and communication services (60.9m); consumer staples is lowest of the large sectors at 53.7m. The ranking holds at the median, so it does not rest on a few outliers
- Energy shows a higher median still (117.8m) but on only five listed companies, too few to read as a sector; finance, at 229 companies, is the meaningful high
- Excluded figures
- Energy and utilities as sector points — 5 and 13 listed companies are too thin to compare to sectors of hundreds, though both pay well
- Bonus and option treatment, which differs by company; holding companies count head-office pay only. A median absorbs some of this but not all
- Any read of individual pay. This is the median company's average, not what any one worker earns, and not adjusted for hours or seniority mix
The full dataset behind these figures — every listed company, every row — is available to license. SeoulMarkets data for licence →
Not investment advice. SMarkets publishes data journalism for general information only. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security — any investment you make is at your own risk and responsibility. Figures are derived from official public data sources and may be revised by the issuing agency. Verify independently before acting.
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