10 European countries with the highest wages

Have you been in a watercooler or microwave kitchen queue conversation at work recently? Chances are one of the topics – possibly the only topic – has been the current economic crisis. Thanks to a collision of various factors such as the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, many of us are feeling a pinch in our pockets.

Data is reflecting our anxieties. Global search interest in the terms “cost of living” and “inflation” on Google Trends has risen steadily over the past 12 months. For European workers however, cross-border mobility when it comes to labour markets is one of our biggest assets, and according to recent research from Indeed Hiring Lab, it is beginning to rebound.

Using anonymised information on over 800 million cross-border job searches carried out on Indeed between January 2019 and April 2022, the company found that European jobseekers ramped up searches for out-of-country jobs in the second half of 2021, following 2020’s below-average international job search activity .

Indeed has found that when Europeans look for jobs outside their home countries, they prefer to search mainly within Europe. From January to April 2022, European countries were the destination for 62% of cross-border searches by Europeans.

So if you’re looking to maximise your pay packet this year, where should you be looking? Legal platform UpCounsel was keen to understand what monetary value workers were actually being delivered in terms of their country’s average industrial wage versus the real cost of living there.

It looked at salaries from 20 countries across 66 different sectors, and took into account the cost of living and rent index in each nation, and came up with some interesting cost-of-living adjusted salaries. Taking into account elements such as the price of groceries, restaurants, transportation and utilities, job movers may well get more bang for their buck in another European nation.

10 Top European cost of living adjusted wages, ranked 

1. Denmark, €74,268
2. Switzerland, €69,851
3. Germany, €69,637
4. Belgium, €63,131
5. Austria, €62,984
6. Spain, €59,662
7. Sweden, €58,991
8. Norway, €58,236
9. France, €55,758
10. Netherlands, €52,991

Interested in making a move to one of the 10 nations above? We have three roles available across Europe below - and you can check out plenty more on the Tech.Eu Job Board too.

Senior Research Engineer – Deep Learning for Science, Microsoft Corporation

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Microsoft is seeking a Senior Research Engineer. This role is an exceptional opportunity for a candidate who is eager to apply their experience in research-oriented software engineering for the development of large-scale deep learning pipelines for scientific applications. You will be joining a diverse team of other researchers and engineers in deep learning, machine learning, chemistry, material science and physics, located across multiple geographic locations in Amsterdam, Beijing and Cambridge. You’ll need a PhD or similar technical achievement with a focus on deep learning, experience in or understanding of applying deep learning to scientific domains such as quantum chemistry or molecular simulation and experience working with high-performance computing systems and distributed computing.
Find out more about the Senior Research Engineer role now.

DevOps Engineer, SumUp

Location: Paris, France.

SumUp offers solutions for merchants, from reservations, through click and collect, deliveries and digital payment, to the management of their business thanks to intuitive and comprehensive financial analytics. The DevOps Engineer will improve platform reliability and security, ease developers’ day through automation and tooling, work with the team on long-term projects around architecture and serverless environments and provide best AWS practices to the engineering team. Interested? You will need at least two to five years’ of experience in AWS Ops/SRE, network knowledge (VPN, TCP, VLAN, Route 53, ELB, etc) and a strong knowledge of AWS and serverless technologies.

Dig into the DevOps Engineer job spec here.

Market Manager, Airbnb

Location: Barcelona, Spain.

As a Market Manager at Airbnb, you’ll be responsible for customer support in assigned territories in Spain and will manage professional host accounts and supply acquisition of high quality inventory. You will build Airbnb’s strong market presence and collaborate with other teams as the local in-market expert, driving all phases of supply acquisition and market success, including acquisition strategy development, generating and converting supply leads, and strategic partners relationship management. To succeed in this role you’ll need more than six years’ of experience in new sales, account management and partner support, two years’ of hospitality/travel industry experience, strong time management and prioritisation skills, and a proven track record of being able to effectively work a leads pipeline and/or a book of business.

Discover more about the Market Manager role now.

Find your perfect European city and great new job on the Tech.Eu Job Board