The key facts

  • Salary leaders: oil and gas extraction — 225,634 rubles, finance and insurance — 212,968 rubles
  • The lowest figures are in education (46,130 rubles) and clothing manufacturing (59,321 rubles)
  • The average salary in August grew by 9.8% year-on-year and amounted to 103,014 rubles

Leaders and laggards by salary

The highest average salary in Russia in August 2026 was earned by workers in oil and natural gas extraction — 225,634 rubles per month. These figures from Rosstat are cited by Gazeta.Ru. In second place is the finance and insurance sector with an average earnings of 212,968 rubles, followed by extraction of metal ores (192,115 rubles) and the IT sector (189,624 rubles).

The lowest-paid sectors

The lowest average salaries were recorded in education — 46,130 rubles — as well as in clothing manufacturing, where workers earned an average of 59,321 rubles per month. Thus, the gap between the highest-paying industry (oil and gas extraction) and education exceeds four and a half times — this ratio follows directly from the figures provided by Rosstat.

Overall dynamics

The average accrued salary in Russia in August 2026 rose by 9.8% year-on-year and amounted to 103,014 rubles. From January to August, the average nominal salary increased by 12% compared with the same period last year, reaching 108.6 thousand rubles. The average salary in the country has exceeded 100 thousand rubles for the ninth month in a row. At the same time, the industry figures cited show that the national average is noticeably lower than the indicators of the leading industries: the salary in oil and gas extraction is more than double the all-Russian average for August.