How the salary report is calculated
Methodology of the monthly “Seafarer salaries” report: which vacancies count, how the median and range are calculated, when a figure is withheld and how editions are released.
Contents14
1What the report shows
What employers offer seafarers in vacancies: the median and range of monthly pay by rank, vessel type and sailing area. These are employers' offers, not actual pay: real pay depends on the vessel, the company, experience and the contract.
2Source
Vacancies from the platform and from open job sites and crewing agency sites, published on Rynda Crewing. Edition 10/2026 covers 12,163 vacancies from 238 companies.
Of these, 45 were posted directly on the platform by employers.
3Window
An edition comes out on the 2nd of the month and covers vacancies open for at least one day in the previous three full months (UTC boundaries). One day after the window is left for review: a vacancy counts only once the platform has checked it, and without that day an edition would undercount the last day of the window. Edition 10/2026 covers vacancies 01/07–30/09/2026.
4What counts
The vacancy passed the platform's checks and was published on it; pay is stated per month and is not negotiable; the rate is between $200 and $40,000 in US dollars; the rank is known. Vacancies that employers post directly count under the same rules if the employer has passed the platform's checks. This version covers vacancies paid in US dollars or euros on seagoing vessels; coastal trading and inland waterway vacancies are not included.
5One vacancy, one vote
The platform collects vacancies from open sites, and the same vacancy is often recorded many times because it is reposted. Each vacancy has a fingerprint: company, rank, vessel type, rate, currency and joining date. Vacancies with the same fingerprint count once.
6Which rate
Where a pay range is given, the lower bound is used: the minimum the employer promises. A range is given in about a third of vacancies, and a median of range midpoints would differ by 0–3%.
7Outliers
A rate below a quarter or above four times the rank's median is treated as an error and excluded. In edition 10/2026, 41 of 12,204 were excluded.
8Currencies
Amounts in euros are converted to US dollars at the rate on the day the vacancy appeared on the platform, so all ranks share one scale. For reposts of the same vacancy, the rate of the first listing is used. For vacancies posted by employers directly on the platform, the rate of the calculation day is used: their dollar amounts are updated every working day.
9Thresholds
The median is shown from 10 vacancies and 3 companies, the range (middle half, 25th to 75th percentile) from 30 vacancies and 5 companies, and the 80% band (10th to 90th percentile) from 100 vacancies. A rank page is open to search engines from 30 vacancies and 5 companies; below that it says “not enough data”.
10Share of one company
If one company accounts for a large part of a rank's vacancies, it can move the figure. So the share of the largest company is calculated for every rank; above 25% the rank is marked “one company holds a large share”. The share is in the edition CSV and in the table below.
| Rank | Vacancies | Companies | Largest share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second Engineer | 1,632 | 161 | 7% |
| Chief Officer | 1,572 | 165 | 6% |
| Chief Engineer | 1,569 | 154 | 6% |
| Master | 946 | 135 | 8% |
| Electro-Technical Officer (ETO) | 910 | 137 | 6% |
| Third Engineer | 881 | 136 | 9% |
| Second Officer | 760 | 126 | 7% |
| Third Officer | 737 | 118 | 8% |
| Fourth Engineer | 609 | 103 | 8% |
| Able Seafarer Deck (AB) | 491 | 99 | 8% |
| Fitter-Welder | 291 | 70 | 12% |
| Ship's Cook | 280 | 76 | 11% |
| Oiler | 278 | 75 | 7% |
| Ordinary Seaman (OS) | 264 | 62 | 9% |
| Ship's Electrician | 158 | 34 | 22% |
| Bosun | 147 | 56 | 10% |
| Pumpman | 123 | 35 | 16% |
| Galley Hand | 99 | 29 | 14% |
| Wiper | 91 | 36 | 13% |
| AB-Cook | 73 | 24 | 18% |
| Deck Cadet | 66 | 23 | 14% |
| Chief Cook | 48 | 17 | 19% |
| Engine Cadet | 34 | 17 | 26% |
| Crane Operator | 20 | 9 | 30% |
| Steward | 17 | 9 | 29% |
| Motorman | 11 | 5 | 45% |
11Trend
The trend is the median of new vacancies by the month they first appeared, for each rank separately: the mix of sources changes from month to month, and an overall median would blend the market with the sources. A month's median is shown from 10 vacancies from 3 companies, like any median in the report. If any month of the window has fewer than 100 vacancies, the result is “too few vacancies to conclude”, with no percentage. Otherwise a difference under 5% means “no notable change”.
12Editions and citation
The report comes out monthly, and each edition's figures are frozen: an edition has its own permanent address and CSV, and the current page switches to the new edition. Before publication, an edition is compared with the previous one: if the number of vacancies changed by more than 30% or the median of a main rank by more than 15%, a person reviews the edition. If an edition needs a correction, a new version of the methodology is released with an entry in the change log below; old figures are never rewritten.
Data may be used with attribution and a link to Rynda Crewing.
Need a breakdown that is not on the page? Write to info@rynda.io.
13Limitations
- These are employers' offers, not actual pay.
- About 95% of the vacancies in this edition come from one large open job site.
- The fingerprint merges identical vacancies of one company on different vessels: that is right for the question “how much do they pay”, but it undercounts “how many vacancies”. So “vacancies” in this report means “distinct vacancies”.
14Change log
Methodology v2, from edition 10/2026. Each vacancy counts once (by fingerprint), only vacancies published on the platform count, the window is three full months, outliers are excluded, and figures are frozen in a monthly edition.