Colombia Has No Salary Data — We're Building the First One with AI

If you've ever looked for a job in Colombia — or tried to hire someone — you know exactly what I'm talking about: you have no idea how much that person should earn.

There is no centralized salary data system in Colombia. There is no equivalent to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nor a public database where you can check how much a web developer earns in Medellín, how much a plumber charges in Bogotá, or what the actual salary range is for an English teacher in Cartagena.

The result is predictable: employers paying the absolute minimum because no one can prove the market pays more, and workers accepting offers without knowing if they're being undervalued. It's a system where information is power — and almost no one has that information.

The problem nobody wants to talk about

Ask any Colombian how much they should earn in their position and you'll hear something like "it depends" or "it varies a lot". And they're right — it does vary. But it varies in part because there's no public data that establishes a benchmark.

In countries like the United States, Canada, or Germany, you can go to Glassdoor, PayScale, or the government website and see exactly how much an accountant earns in your city. You can negotiate your salary with real data. You can know if that offer of $2,500,000 COP per month is fair or if they're ripping you off.

In Colombia you can't do that. And the consequences are real:

• Workers accept unfair wages because they have no way to compare
• Companies lose talent because they offer less than the market without knowing it
• Freelancers charge blindly — some charge too much and lose customers, others charge too little and burn out
• Foreigners pay more for services because they don't know local prices
• Colombians earn less to international clients because they don't know how much their work is worth abroad

It's the same problem that the Colombian real estate market has: without data, there is no justice. We wrote about how Colombia doesn't have an MLS and we're building a solution for real estate. Now we're doing the same thing for the labor market.

What we are building

We launched Colombia Move — a 100% free job board and services for the entire country. But it's not just another job board. It's the foundation of something much bigger.

Each job posting published on the platform includes salary data, category, city, and employment type. This data is aggregated anonymously to build what Colombia has never had: a real, up-to-date salary map accessible to everyone.

You can now see the first data in our salary page — averages by category and city, based on real offers published on the platform.

The data is still limited. We're new. But every listing that gets published makes the system smarter, more accurate, and more useful for everyone.

How the intelligence behind the system works

We are not simply collecting numbers and averaging them. We are building a system that:

• Analyze trends by city — Does Medellín pay more than Bogotá for developers? Does Cartagena pay less for customer service? The data will tell.
• Detect undervalued categories — if plumbers in Bogotá earn less than in Medellín for no apparent reason, that will be visible
• Shows evolution over time — how salaries change month to month, quarter to quarter
• Compare remote work vs in-office work — how much more (or less) remote offers pay
• Currency difference — offers in COP vs USD so freelancers can see the complete picture

The more offers that are published, the more accurate the data will be. It's a network effect: each user who publishes an offer benefits everyone else.

Why does it have to be free

Computrabajo charges. LinkedIn charges. Employment agencies charge commission. And the result is that small businesses and independent workers are left out of the system.

If you charge to post a job listing, only large companies will post. And if only large companies post, salary data only reflects corporate salaries. That's not a map of the real market — it's a map of the large company market.

That's why Colombia Move is and will always be free to post. We need the refrigeration technician in Bucaramanga to publish their rate, the yoga instructor in Pereira to publish their class, the restaurant in Cartagena to publish their waiter vacancy. That's the data we're missing.

What you can do today

This doesn't work without you. It's not a marketing phrase — it's math. A salary data system needs data, and that data comes from the job postings people publish.

If you're an employer, post your job openings. If you offer services, post your profile. If you're looking for work, search the platform and share with your contacts. Each action contributes to building something Colombia has needed for decades.

Explore offers by city: Medellín, Bogotá, Cartagena, Cali, or remote work.

The future we want to build

Imagine being able to open an app and see: "A full-stack developer in Medellín with 3 years of experience earns between $4,500,000 and $7,000,000 COP per month." With real data, not estimates.

Imagine a plumber in Bogotá being able to see that his colleagues charge between $80,000 and $150,000 per visit, and adjust his price with confidence. Or a company in Barranquilla knowing exactly how much to offer to attract marketing talent without overpaying or underpaying.

That is the future we are building. It won't happen overnight. But each offer published brings us one step closer.

Colombia deserves salary transparency. And we're going to build it together.

Frequently Asked Questions

❓ Is Colombia Move really free?

Yes. Posting job offers, services, and searching for work is 100% free. We don't charge commissions or have hidden premium plans for posting. We need everyone to participate so the data is useful.

❓ How do they protect the privacy of salary data?

All salary data is aggregated anonymously. No one can see the salary of a specific job posting in the statistics — only averages and ranges by category and city.

❓ How many offers do you need for the data to be reliable?

For statistically significant data by category and city, we need at least 20-30 offers per combination. We're at the beginning, but every offer counts and the data improves every day.

❓ Is the platform only for expats or also for Colombians?

It's for everyone. The platform is completely bilingual and designed for both Colombians and foreigners. The more Colombians who participate, the more representative the real market data will be.

❓ Can I view salary data without posting a job offer?

Yes. Salary data is public and free on our salary page. You don't need an account or to post anything to consult them.