Skilled Trades Salaries Now Overtake Office Workers, Some Hit Rp1.8 Billion!
The view that a university degree is the main route to a stable career is beginning to change. Amid advances in technology and the AI boom, many technical jobs are experiencing rising demand and significant pay increases.
Professions such as mechanics, robotics technicians, and air‑conditioning technicians are increasingly in demand by employers. In fact, in several advanced countries, earnings of skilled trades workers are starting to rival those of office staff.
This phenomenon was revealed by Randstad, the global recruitment company, through its latest data on labour market trends. Randstad CEO Sander van ’t Noordende said traditional career patterns are beginning to shift.
‘I would say that the days of going to university and then working in an office to secure a lucrative career are over,’ Noordende said, as quoted by CNBC on Friday, 22 May 2026.
‘You have to be smarter than that. I think technology, of any kind of technology, remains a good career path,’ he added.
He said that skills-based technical work is now growing much faster than some traditional administrative roles. ‘Skilled-trade work is growing very rapidly. I would say you can have a good career and earn good money in this field. That is clearly a career path,’ he continued.
Randstad data show that average wages for skilled-trade workers in the United States have risen by up to 30 per cent since 2022. Increases have also been seen in the Netherlands by 21 per cent, Germany 18 per cent, and the United Kingdom 9 per cent.
In the Netherlands, a mechanic can now earn an average US$79,000 or around Rp1.38 billion per year. In Germany, a mechanic’s earnings reach US$76,600 or around Rp1.34 billion per year.
Moreover, workers in the construction and housing sectors in the United Kingdom have recorded average earnings of more than US$78,500 or around Rp1.37 billion per year.
Rising demand for technical workers is partly driven by the construction of data centres that underpin the global AI industry. These facilities require a large amount of physical labour, from electrical technicians, air‑conditioning specialists, industrial automation to robotics.
Noordende argues that the advancement of AI actually shows that digital transformation still requires a lot of human labour on the ground. ‘The debate about AI’s impact on the labour market often focuses only on whether generative models will replace office jobs. The important reality, however, is overlooked: AI cannot build its own data centres.’