What Nigerians expect to be paid

Name: Nigeria Salary Expectations Report 2026 — what jobseekers ask for, by role and state
Creator: Aremu
License: https://aremu.ai/terms

Nigerian pay data is mostly guesswork. This is the real thing: 10,240 jobseekers on Aremu telling us, in their own words, the monthly salary they are looking for — broken down by role and by state.

Updated August 2026 · Free to use and quote with a link to this page.

Half of Nigerian jobseekers ask for ₦200,000 a month or more.
Banking / Teller tops the list at ₦300,000; Cleaning / Janitorial sits lowest at ₦100,000.
A 33% gap separates Lagos from Akwa Ibom for the same national labour market.

₦200,000Median expectation / month

₦120,000Lower quartile

₦300,000Upper quartile

10,240Jobseekers in the sample

By role

Median monthly expectation for each role, highest first. The quartiles show the middle half of each group — half of all banking / teller candidates, for example, ask for somewhere between those two figures. Roles with fewer than 40 candidates are left out.

Role	Lower	Median	Upper	Sample
Banking / Teller	₦200,000	₦300,000	₦500,000	50
Business Development	₦250,000	₦300,000	₦500,000	66
Human Resources	₦200,000	₦300,000	₦500,000	112
Project Management	₦200,000	₦300,000	₦450,000	69
Consulting / Strategy	₦200,000	₦300,000	₦600,000	49
Operations Management	₦200,000	₦250,000	₦400,000	97
Management / Supervision	₦180,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	713
Data Analysis	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	115
Legal / Law	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦400,000	40
Digital Marketing / SEO	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	113
Engineering (General)	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦400,000	208
Accounting	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	192
Executive / Personal Assistant	₦180,000	₦250,000	₦300,000	240
UI/UX Design	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦400,000	46
Auditing	₦150,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	53
QA / Software Testing	₦200,000	₦250,000	₦350,000	60
Procurement	₦200,000	₦250,000	₦400,000	41
Financial Analysis	₦150,000	₦240,000	₦350,000	54
Frontend Development	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	61
Driving (General)	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦250,000	363
Warehouse / Inventory	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	166
Marketing / Promotion	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	51
Web Design / WordPress	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦350,000	50
Video Editing	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	116
IT Support / Helpdesk	₦100,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	73
Journalism / Broadcasting	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦250,000	42
Data Entry	₦100,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	84
Social Media Management	₦120,000	₦200,000	₦250,000	347
Customer Service	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦300,000	958
Administration / Office	₦150,000	₦200,000	₦250,000	679
Nursing / Midwifery	₦100,000	₦170,000	₦250,000	80
Public Health / Wellness	₦100,000	₦160,000	₦250,000	45
Pharmacy	₦80,000	₦150,000	₦200,000	42
Front Desk / Receptionist	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦200,000	219
General Labour / Factory	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦200,000	57
Graphic Design	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	384
Cooking / Chef	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	235
Fashion Design	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦200,000	91
Content Writing	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	165
Retail / Shop Attendant	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦200,000	125
Sales Representative	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	690
Security / Guard	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	95
Teaching / Tutoring	₦100,000	₦150,000	₦250,000	671
Baking / Pastry	₦100,000	₦130,000	₦180,000	59
Hotel / Housekeeping	₦80,000	₦120,000	₦200,000	59
Waiting / Bar	₦80,000	₦100,000	₦150,000	128
Cleaning / Janitorial	₦80,000	₦100,000	₦120,000	76

By state

Lagos leads at ₦200,000 against ₦150,000 in Akwa Ibom — a 33% gap for the same national labour market. States with fewer than 60 candidates are left out.

State	Median	Sample
Lagos	₦200,000	6,083
Abuja	₦200,000	265
Delta	₦180,000	107
Ogun	₦160,000	560
Oyo	₦150,000	412
Rivers	₦150,000	155
Kwara	₦150,000	110
Osun	₦150,000	105
Edo	₦150,000	102
Ondo	₦150,000	72
Akwa Ibom	₦150,000	64

How to read this

These are expectations, not salaries paid. Every figure is what a candidate says they are looking for. It is a demand-side signal — useful for pricing a role, not a survey of payroll.
Self-reported by 10,240 active jobseekers on Aremu, stated as a monthly figure in naira.
Values outside ₦30,000–₦3,000,000 per month are excluded as data-entry errors (about 2.5% of entries).
Every row needs a minimum sample (40 candidates for a role, 60 for a state) so no figure rests on a handful of people. Medians and quartiles are used rather than averages, so a few outliers cannot drag a row.
Aggregate only — no individual's figure is published or identifiable.
Free to quote and republish with attribution and a link to this page. For the underlying breakdown, contact us.

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