French electronics salary study 2026, Digi Mart USA News (France): Khonexio, a French recruitment and consulting firm specializing in electronics, microelectronics and embedded systems, has published its 2026 study of electronics salaries in France. The firm’s founder, David Hourdebaigt, surveyed 17,548 professionals with at least a five-year university degree between April 7 and October 6, 2026.
Technicians and freelancers were excluded due to insufficient data.
The study, which Khonexio presents as an analytical tool rather than an absolute truth, covers 24 occupations from hardware to software. It reports average gross annual pay, excluding benefits, by experience level and across the Paris region and five other metropolitan regions.
Starting graduates earn between 36,568 euros, the average for a junior test engineer in the provinces, and 44,981 euros, the average for a junior sales engineer in the Paris region. The range in the 2025 edition was 36,107 to 44,604 euros, an increase of about 1%.
Hourdebaigt said pay increases granted to employees in 2025-2026 remained below inflation.
Skills whose pay rose fastest compared with 2025 include product and application engineering, electronics industrialization, sales, power electronics and radiofrequency. The study links growing interest in radiofrequency and power electronics to the growth of satellite communications (Satcom) and electrification.
Electronics industrialization, highly sought after by small and mid-sized companies, rose ten places in two years, while safety, testing and software validation, EMC and C++ programming recorded the smallest increases. Safety fell twelve places in two years due to the automotive crisis.
In the overall ranking, sales (index 100), purchasing (91.9) and product and application engineering (90.5) remain the best paid, while testing ranks last (74.5). By sector, defense offers the highest salaries (index 100), followed closely by microelectronics (98.7), driven by demand for military semiconductors.
Telecoms (95.9), space (95.7), energy (95.4) and consumer electronics (94.9) follow, then aerospace (93.5), medical (90.8) and rail (89.4). The automotive sector remains the lowest paid (86.2), with a gap of 13.8% against defense, compared with 12.3% last year.
Geographically, Ile-de-France pays electronics staff the most (index 100), ahead of Nice (95.8), Lyon/Grenoble (91.7), Marseille (91.1) and Bordeaux/Toulouse (86.8). Nantes/Rennes ranks last (85.5), 14.5% below the Paris region, compared with a gap of 14.7% in the previous study.
The study also highlights a gap between employer and employee perceptions: 71% of employers believe their staff are satisfied with pay, while only 28.5% of employees say they are. In addition, 96.8% of people who accepted a counteroffer from their employer left the company within 18 months.
Hourdebaigt said the market is marked by strong competition for technical skills. Companies are increasingly departing from standard pay scales to attract the most sought-after profiles, sometimes offering pay 20% to 30% above usual levels.
He added that salary now serves as a tool for selecting, attracting and retaining talent. He also said candidates have become harder to reach: where 20 to 30 contacts once produced two or three genuine responses 18 months ago, 40 to 50 are now needed for one good result.
The full study is available through Khonexio’s website or its LinkedIn page.
