Job level

How do I interpret the different job levels?

• Administrative, support staff: Employees without managerial authority who support the core activity of the organisation, such as a reception attendant, a maintenance technician in a factory, a security guard in a department store, ...
• Executive staff: Employees without managerial authority who carry out (part of) the organisation's core activity, but who have no final responsibility, such as shop staff, postmen, production staff, etc.
• A professional employee: Employees without managerial authority but with a separate expertise and a specific final responsibility, such as sales employees, accountants, lawyers, ...
• Middle management: Employees with managerial authority over part of the organisation, such as head of department, desk manager, foreman, team leader, ...
• Senior and top management: Employees with managerial authority throughout the organisation, such as general manager, company manager, CEO, CFO, ...

Education level

How do I interpret the different education levels?

• Professional bachelor: A professional bachelor is a practice-oriented professional education. You do internships, develop certain skills and gain practical knowledge. Examples are Bachelor of Nursing, Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Electrical Engineering. You can only follow these professional Bachelor's programmes at a high school.
• Academic bachelor: An academic bachelor is a theoretical and scientific programme aimed at research and the development of theoretical knowledge. Examples are Bachelor of Psychology, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Commercial Sciences. You can follow these academic bachelor courses at a university.
• Academic Master: Most students with an academic Bachelor's degree follow a subsequent Master's programme. You can follow a master's programme at a college or university. If you are a professional bachelor, you will first follow a bridging programme or a shortened bachelor's programme before starting a master's programme.

Organization size

I work for a multinational company with 10,000 employees worldwide. However, the Belgian team consists of about 20 employees. What do I choose under "organisation size"?
The size of the organisation is limited to the number of employees in Belgium.

Years of work experience

What should I fill in under "number of years of work experience"?
Under "number of years of work experience", fill in the number of years since your first paid job (after leaving school so not as a student or trainee). If you got your first employment contract in 2002, you will have 18 years of work experience in 2020.

13th month, commissions and bonuses

Does the predicted gross salary include or exclude commissions and/or bonuses?
The predicted gross salary does not include variables, such as commissions, bonuses, etc.?
Does the predicted gross salary include a 13th (and 14th) month?
No, the predicted gross salary is a 'normal' monthly salary without the addition of a 13th or 14th month.

Extralegal benefits

I don't have a company car, a fuel card, a mobile phone or entertainment expenses. Does this affect the result? Can this be compensated in the salary?
The Salary Calculator generates separate estimates for extralegal benefits based on your profile. The prediction of your gross salary is based on a different calculation and does not take into account extralegal benefits that are specific to someone with your professional profile.

Data of Salary Calculator

How often is the data that serves as the basis for the Salary Calculator updated?
Salaries and extralegal benefits are not static data. That is why we regularly update the data of the Salary Calculator. In this way, we keep the prediction of your gross salary as accurate as possible. For this edition of the Salary Calculator, we are working with the indexed figures we collected in the second half of 2017 and the beginning of 2018.

Composition of Salary Calculator

What data was used to compile the Salary Calculator?

Data 2018

	Gender
	Male	64%
	Female	37%
	Education:
	No higher education	27%
	Professional bachelor	32%
	Academic bachelor	7%
	Academic master	34%
	Age:
	Average age	36,5 years
	Function level:
	Executive staff	26%
	Administrative support staff	12%
	Professional employee	29%
	Middle management	26%
	Higher management	7%

Note: these data were not 'weighted' to correctly reflect the Belgian wage earning population. The Salary Calculator thus provides an analysis of the wages of the people who filled it in. However, given the amount of data, they can be considered representative for white-collar workers in Flanders and Brussels.

How does the Salary Calculator predict salaries and benefits?

The salary forecast is based on the results of regression analyses. Based on the answers of almost 50,000 working Belgians, we calculate the impact of each of the characteristics you enter in the calculator. This results in a salary function, which expresses how salaries are determined in Belgium. Your profile is entered in this salary function and this results in a predicted or estimated salary. This technique produces more accurate predictions than working with averages or medians.

The benefits are calculated on the basis of the participants in the Salary Survey with a similar profile as yours (same sector, job domain and job level).

Data processing

What happens to the data I enter in the Salary Calculator?
We use your answers to continuously update the Salary Calculator. So you help all future Salary Calculator users with objective and accurate data. Your data will of course be processed completely anonymously.