Wellington has been ranked top out of 15 regions in terms of average salary packages on offer.

From September to November, the average salary package advertised for jobs in Wellington was $74,392, data from employment website Seek shows.

Auckland ($71,103) was second behind the West Coast ($70,549) and Taranaki ($69,927).

The national average is $69,140.

The data is based on 10,500 jobs listed on the Seek website, with the average salary rates an aggregated midpoint of the annual salary package of fulltime jobs on offer.

Seek senior executive Helen Souness said Wellington and Auckland had seen higher average salary packages advertised as major IT projects, which had been frozen during the global financial crisis, were now being rolled out.

Thirty per cent of the Wellington job listings were for IT jobs.

The average salary packages on the West Coast and in Taranaki were being driven by skills shortages in the mining and gas sectors.

However, Felicity Ryan, of Christchurch-based Ryan Recruitment, was sceptical of the survey results.

"It's only based on the jobs on offer on Seek, not on all the people in New Zealand in work," she said. "It doesn't represent a clear picture of the employment market."

A high percentage of jobs were never advertised, and the salary ranges on the website were not necessarily what people were paid.