Average pay fell behind prices in 7 of 9 Qatar job groups from 2022 to 2025

From 2022 to 2025, average monthly pay in 2 of the 9 occupation groups rose faster than prices. In the other 7 it fell behind, including the highest-paid groups. In 2022, managers and senior officials averaged QR 43,230 a month and professionals QR 27,263 a month.

"After inflation" means pay divided by the official price index. A minus sign means the group's average pay bought less in 2025 than in 2022.

Groups whose average pay kept ahead of prices:

• Service and sales workers: average pay rose 11.8% before inflation and 6.6% after.
• Craft and trades workers: average pay rose 7.5% before inflation and 2.5% after.

Groups whose average pay lost buying power:

• Managers and senior officials: lost 1.4% (pay up 3.4% before inflation).
• Technicians: lost 1.5% (pay up 3.3% before inflation).
• Elementary occupations: lost 2.7%.
• Clerks: lost 4.5%.
• Professionals: lost 5.2% (pay down 0.6% before inflation).
• Plant and machine operators: lost 7.7%.
• Farm and fishery workers: lost 11.0%, a figure covered further below.

The yardstick is the general consumer price index for Qatar. Each year's value is the mean of its twelve monthly readings. The 2022 average is 103.71 and the 2025 average is 108.75, a rise of 4.9%. A group's average pay had to rise by more than 4.9% before inflation to keep ahead on this base.

The headline base is 2022 because it is the first year after a probable reclassification of occupations between 2021 and 2022. The index covers a general household basket, not any one worker's spending.

The 2020 base is a second, weaker comparison. The 2020 average is 96.55, so prices rose 12.6% from 2020 to 2025. That comparison spans the probable break, so its sizes are not reliable. On this base, professionals show a fall of 16.6% after inflation and farm and fishery workers a fall of 22.0%, but both figures cross the break.

The same two groups are ahead on both bases: service and sales workers (+10.4% from 2020) and craft and trades workers (+5.9%). The same seven are behind on both. The falls are smaller from 2022.

The chart sets each group's buying power in 2022 at 100. Two lines end above that starting point.

• Service and sales workers: average pay went from QR 6,517 a month in 2022 to QR 7,288 a month in 2025, before inflation. After inflation it is up 6.6%.
• Craft and trades workers: average pay went from QR 4,199 a month to QR 4,513 a month, before inflation. After inflation it is up 2.5%.

Three groups lost the most buying power from 2022:

• Farm and fishery workers: average pay went from QR 3,736 a month to QR 3,486 a month, before inflation. After inflation it lost 11.0%.
• Plant and machine operators: average pay went from QR 4,154 a month to QR 4,019 a month, before inflation. After inflation it lost 7.7%.
• Professionals: average pay went from QR 27,263 a month to QR 27,100 a month, before inflation. After inflation it lost 5.2%.

Farm and fishery workers are the smallest of the nine groups, at 34,354 workers in 2025, so that group's figure rests on a small base. Craft and trades workers are the largest group in 2025, at 574,305 workers.

Each figure here is the average pay of a group whose members change from year to year. Pay is weighted by worker counts, so the average can move when the mix of workers changes, for example with new, lower-paid hires, even if nobody's pay changed. The table cannot separate raises from changes in who is counted.

Worker counts moved a lot. Professionals went from 238,139 in 2020 to 363,579 in 2025. Craft and trades workers went from 665,735 to 574,305. Elementary occupations went from 384,674 to 313,045.

The counts also jump between 2021 and 2022: professionals from 223,981 to 304,439 (+35.9%), clerks from 134,207 to 186,610 (+39.0%), and craft and trades workers from 632,966 to 547,169 (-13.6%). All workers in the table rose 5.4%. This probably points to a change in how jobs are classified, though the table does not say. The 2021 and 2022 points should not be read as real year-on-year changes.

The table gives one figure per year and does not say whether it is an annual average or one quarter. It does not say whether wages include allowances. The price index covers a general household basket, so it cannot describe any one group's costs.