📈Your starting salary is not your ceiling

When looking for a job, we look at one number: the salary offered now. That is normal — but it is the least interesting number. The one that really counts is where this job takes you in five or ten years.

Across the 66 jobs Flemmy tracks, the median gap between a starting salary and a senior salary is +€21k a year. In other words: the role you accept today is not your ceiling, it is your way in.

The strongest progressions

And if we think in multipliers

The raw gap favours jobs that already start high. Seen differently — how many times your starting salary — the ranking changes, and becomes far more encouraging for those who start low.

Sources: job postings observed on France Travail and Adzuna, ROME framework. Gross annual. “Start” = first job, “Senior” = top of the range after several years. These are observed orders of magnitude, not promises: region, sector and company size move these figures.

What really moves the line

1. Changing company. It is by far the most effective accelerator. Internal raises rarely keep up with the market; a change of job does.
2. Specialising. In almost all of these jobs, the top of the range matches an identifiable expertise — not seniority.
3. Putting numbers on what you did. “I managed a client portfolio” is not worth “I handled 120 clients and cut unpaid invoices by 30%”. Same experience — not the same salary.