What companies pay in Nigeria: real salaries by role and city
Know whether your offer competes before you post it.
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Why a role sits unfilled for months
Posting a job without knowing what the market pays is the number one reason a role sits unfilled for months: if the salary is below the range, the candidates you wanted never even apply.
Salary information in Nigeria is opaque. There is no public source broken down by role and city, consultancies sell reports a small company will not buy, and asking around returns anecdotes rather than a range. So most companies end up guessing: they copy what they paid before, add something for inflation and wait. When nobody applies, there is no way to tell whether the problem was the salary, the ad or the timing.
Where these salaries come from and how they are computed
It is worth knowing exactly what you are looking at before making a decision with these numbers.
- Real job postings, not surveys Every figure comes from vacancies posted in Nigeria by companies that were actually hiring, with the salary they stated in the ad. No estimates, no projections.
- They update themselves There is no annual report going stale. When a new posting with a salary comes in it joins the calculation, and expired ones stop counting.
- Median, never average One manager salary dropped into a list of factory workers drags the average up and stops describing anyone. The median does not move for a single outlier, which is why it is the figure we publish.
- You always see how many postings Next to every figure is the number of postings behind it. A median over 200 ads and one over 9 are not worth the same, and you need to be able to see that.
- If the sample is thin, we say so When an area and city combination falls below the minimum sample we do not show a made-up number: we say the sample is too small and offer the country-wide figure for that area, the closest real one.
What you get inside
Your posts against the market
Each of your vacancies with the percentage gap against its area median.
Median and range by area
Sales, accounting, production, tech and the rest, each with its full range.
Median and range by city
Pay changes between the capital and the rest of the country, and you see by how much.
Area and city comparator
The exact cross-section you care about, with its range and its sample.
Who publishes the salary
What share of postings in your sector shows the salary in the ad.
How to read a salary range
The median is the salary with half the postings below it and half above: if a role's median is 800, half the market pays less than 800 and the other half pays more.
The 25th percentile is where a quarter of postings pay less, and the 75th is where a quarter pay more. Between those two numbers sits the middle half of the market: that is the range where your offer looks normal.
That is why a range says more than a single number. Paying below the 25th percentile is not impossible, but you will compete against three quarters of the market offering more; paying above the 75th fills the role fast and tells you what that speed is costing you.
Three moments when this data decides
You are about to post and do not know what to offer
You check the median for that role in your city and set a number that competes, instead of copying last year's.
Weeks in and no candidates
You compare your offer against the market and settle it: if it is 20% below, the ad was never the problem.
Someone on your team asks for a raise
You see the real range for that role and know whether the request is reasonable, with data instead of a hunch.
How to start in three steps
Create your account
With your work email. No card required.
Pick your area and your city
The range shows up right away, with the sample it was computed from.
Compare against your own posts
If you already posted, you see the percentage gap against the market.
Frequently asked questions
Where do these salaries come from?
From job postings published on Saplic that state a salary. These are real vacancies from companies hiring in Nigeria, not surveys or consultancy estimates. Each figure is computed over that country's active postings, grouped by area and by city, and always in a single currency.
How often are they updated?
Continuously. This is not a report published once a year: every new posting with a salary joins the calculation as soon as it goes live, and expired ones drop out. What you see is the market today, not the last closed quarter.
Does it work if my sector is very specific?
It depends how many postings exist for that sector in your country. Data is grouped by specialty area rather than by niche: if your role falls into an area with enough postings, you get the range. If the exact cross-section falls below the minimum sample, the tool says so and offers the country-wide area figure instead of inventing one.
Why do you use the median and not the average?
Because the average is dragged around by outliers and the median is not. If a list of ten factory workers includes one manager earning ten times more, the average climbs to a number that describes none of the eleven; the median stays where most people are. We also discard absurd figures far from the country median, which are almost always data-entry errors.
What if there is no data for my city?
No made-up figure is shown. When a city falls below the minimum sample you get a notice that there is not enough data, plus the median for that area across the whole country, which is the closest real reference. A broader true number beats a specific false one.
Do I have to post a job to see the data?
No. Creating a company account is enough to see salaries by area and city for your country. Posting only adds one thing: the comparison of your own vacancies against the market, which needs one of your postings to carry a salary.
Is it free?
Yes. Market data comes with the Saplic company account at no cost and with no credit card. There is no cut-down version hiding the figures behind a paywall.
Check the range before your next job post
Creating the account takes a couple of minutes and the Nigeria data is there from day one.
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