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Understand · Payroll glossary

What is a salary scale?

Updated on

A salary scale is the code that sets your salary in the public sector, according to your grade or post and your qualifications. In Dutch: weddeschaal.

Definition of a salary scale

Each scale gives a starting salary and increases with seniority, up to a maximum. In education in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, scales have numbers (301, 501…) and rise every two years from 5 years, up to the maximum after 25 or 27 years of seniority.

A new post or a new qualification can move you to another scale.

Worked example

Scale 148 in Flemish education gives €3,474.10 gross a month after just over 3 years. For a single tenured teacher with no children, that comes to about €2,425.40 net (Indexo calculation with the deductions of statutory staff).

In Dutch: weddeschaal

On a Dutch-language payslip or HR document, the salary scale is called ‘weddeschaal’; on a French-language one, ‘échelle barémique’.

Dutch term taken from: FPS BOSA.

Not to be confused with…

  • Pay scale: an official table that sets an amount according to criteria: the minimum wage according to the job and experience, or tax according to income.
  • Pay seniority: the number of years of service that count towards your salary: it moves you up your salary scale.

Calculate it for your situation

Tenured or temporary: net pay, the workload in periods, holiday pay, the year-end bonus and the summer for temporary teachers.

Teacher

Related terms

Sources

Parameters in force on 1 October 2026. Each parameter links to its source, the official one where it exists; a secondary source is flagged as such.