Women account for just 28.1% of Ireland’s top 1% of earners, CSO figures show

Female employment in the top 1% of earnings increased to 28.1% in 2025, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Males accounted for 71.9% of employments with earnings in the top 1%, while males also represented 50.6% of all employments active for at least 50 weeks in 2025.

The figures found some interesting rises in employment numbers, in Public Administration and Defence had the highest proportion of female employments among the top 1% of earners, this was closely followed by Human Health and Social Work sector.

For females, the largest annual increase in those in the top 1% of earners was in the Administrative and Support Services. In contrast, the number of female employees in Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities earning in the top 1% decreased since 2024.

The CSO also looked at the distribution of earnings by County, with Dublin having the highest median annual earnings in 2025, sitting at €50,474.

Eimear Heffernan, Statistician in the Labour Market and Earnings Division of the CSO, said: “In 2025, gender representation across total employment was relatively equal. Of employments active for at least 50 weeks of the year, males accounted for 50.6%, while females accounted for 49.4%. This compares with almost three-quarters of employments with earnings in the top 1%, which were held by males (71.9%).

During the five years between 2020 and 2025, the proportion of female employment with earnings in the top 1% increased by over three percentage points, from 24.8% in 2020 to 28.1% in 2025, the highest proportion of female employment in this earnings bracket since the series began in 2011. During the same period, the proportion of female employment with earnings in the top 10% rose from 28.4% in 2020 to 31.1% in 2025.

Males represented a higher share of total employment in eight of the 13 economic sectors than females, but they accounted for the majority of employment in the top 1% of earnings across all sectors in 2025. Administrative & Support Services recorded the largest annual increase in the proportion of employment among females in the top 1% of earners (+2.3 percentage points). In contrast, the proportion of employment among females in Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities with earnings in the top 1% decreased by 1.8 percentage points between 2024 (26.0%) and 2025 (24.2%).

The greatest disparity between female representation in total employment and those in the top 1% of earnings occurred in the Education sector. In 2025, females represented almost three-quarters (73.2%) of all employment in Education, compared with 34.8% of employment among those with earnings in the top 1%. Similarly, females accounted for 76.2% of employment in the Human Health & Social Work sector, while accounting for 38.7% of employment within the top 1% of earnings.

It is important to note that data in relation to hours worked is not available in the EAADS dataset; however, data provided by the CSO's Labour Force Survey (LFS) can provide further context around average hours worked. Table QLF33 shows that in Q4 2025, males had higher average hours worked per week (38.7), compared with their female counterparts (31.8). A similar trend was observed across each quarter of 2025.