The 2026 European Tech Compensation Report
What tech workers earn and keep across Europe, what makes them happiest, and what are the best countries to target - all in one free public report.
Tech compensation in Europe is a complex topic.
It demands a high level of sophistication, if one wants to understand things well.
I consider myself an expert in this domain, having spent years researching it for my own tech career in Europe, and later having built a business around it, comprising of:
This newsletter (The European Engineer): to the best of my knowledge, the nr.1 newsletter on high-paying tech careers in Europe.
Euro Top Tech: the nr.1 job board and career platform for high-paying tech careers in Europe.
My coaching program: which allows me to regularly work side-by-side with tech workers in Europe in landing six-figure tech jobs in Europe or remotely.
Euro Top Tech gathers lots of data, which I leveraged to create a free-to-consult artifact, summarising a lot of insights:
The European Software Engineer Compensation Report
It blends 1,388 (as of July 2026) data points around pay, cost of living and life quality, from tech workers in Europe with data from 15,255 curated top-tier job listings.
It builds a nuanced picture, worth looking at and keeping as a reference.
It will be constantly updated, in real-time, and the plan is for every year to progressively build a new one, creating “logs” of Europe’s tech market.
In today’s article, I’ll share a few key findings from the report (and more).
You can consult the full report at this link.
Community data (1388 entries, at the time of writing this article):
Median pay across Europe, for senior engineers:
The white line (whisker) shows the tail percentile (data that sits around the median).
You can see how Switzerland has the highest median, but the UK, Netherlands, Lithuania, Romania and Poland can significantly punch above their weight for top profiles and comp packages.
Savings (what is left after tax and cost of living) reorder the map:
Switzerland stays on tops, but the median gap shrinks, and countries in Central and Eastern Europe like Poland, Romania or Lithuania shoot up.
The UK climbs down, due to high cost of living and high taxes.
Do people save more in capital cities, or in smaller towns?
It depends.
Looking at eurotoptech.com/data/financial (tracks averages instead of medians), we see a different picture between Western and Eastern Europe.
Average savings in Western Europe:
Switzerland: 50k; Zurich: 60k
UK: 37k; London: 48k
Netherlands: 34k; Amsterdam: 44k
Average savings in Central/Eastern Europe:
Poland: 36k; Warsaw: 36k (interesting!)
Romania: 32k; Bucharest: 35k
Lithuania: 41k; Vilnius: 36k
The reason for this discrepancy, is that there’s more remote work in Central/Eastern Europe. Especially at higher levels of pay.
And if your country highest pay packages are for remote roles, you’ll naturally be saving more living outside of expensive capital cities.
I’ve asked Fable if this theory is backed by data, and the answer is YES:
With a couple of caveats:
How seniority impacts compensation:
Median reported total comp: €45,000 entry, €61,750 mid, €88,000 senior, €120,000 staff.
This proves that the two (obvious) levers for increasing pay and savings are:
Better job/company/country
More seniority
Also, around 32% of the 1,388 engineers reporting clear €100k before tax. This also shows how Euro Top Tech community data doesn’t track national averages, but roughly the top 10-50% of Europe’s tech market. In other words: you guys rock! 😎🤙
Does money buy happiness?
From our community data, it seems like: yes, it kinda does.
What CORRELATES THE MOST WITH HAPPINESS:
How much you spend / your lifestyle
How much you save
People who manage to do both, report highest happiness.
And… Majority of them, are high-pay remote workers living in Central/Eastern Europe. Frugal savers in high-cost locations report lower happiness than those.
Further proof:
Don’t be a frugal FIRE-seeker!! It’s bad for your happiness :)
Job Board Data (from 15,255 curated top-tier job listings)
As you know, Euro Top Tech job board splits in two:
Big Tech / HFT / Scaleup jobs (high-pay, mostly onsite/hybrid):
Six-figure fully-remote companies/jobs:
I looked at both, and I promise:
The insights you’ll now see are something you’ve never seen 👀🔥👇
Looking at the first group (onsite/hybrid jobs):
This is my favorite graph from the report.
It shows, in very clear terms, how much these jobs make you save, but also how many of them there are.
I’ve always said, especially on LinkedIn:
Companies being equal: Zurich offers the highest pay and savings in Europe
Problem is that Zurich is small, number of high-paying companies is little, jobs are competitive
London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Warsaw: offer lower pay/savings than Zurich, but also have much bigger markets, meaning that it’s gonna be easier landing top jobs there than in Zurich
This explains why, in the previously-shared community data, Zurich and Switzerland average and median pay and savings aren’t radically different from other top spots in Europe (‘cause more people can enter top companies in larger markets)
One data that is missing - but that I’m collecting and that I’ll be sharing in the future 😈 - is how many people apply to each location.
I’ll get this data, then layer it onto the graph, and it will improve the intel on how hard it is to get a job in each market (function of both market size i.e. number of jobs, and demand i.e. number of applicants).
A little spoiler 😉:
That’s not all.
This graph is the same as the above, but from the remote jobs page:
And, to close this 2D analysis:
Merging both job boards (onsite/big-tech + remote):
This puts data behind a claim that I’ve made over and over again:
That Poland is a top market to target as a tech worker in Europe.
Combines great onsite big tech opportunities, with a very geo-optimised setup for remote work.
The early data (shown above) about where people apply shows how few people apply to jobs in Poland, likely making it the easiest market to get top roles in.
The UK remains the biggest market no matter how you look at it: not just onsite, but also for remote roles.
There is more local high-paying startups than anywhere else in Europe, hiring remotely from there is easier for US startups than elsewhere in Europe (due to simple setup and low language friction).
Switzerland stays the niche, cream of the crop option for:
Top talent who can land top roles in the toughest market
Average talent who’s OK with local low-six-figure jobs
Other markets offer interesting opportunities, depending on what you’re looking at.
Being open to more than one market is one of the highest levers you can pull, to boost your tech career in Europe.
Here you can see which countries rank well for reported happiness and satisfaction from tax-paid services levels, from our community:
For more data from the community, go here.
I hope you found this report valuable!
It’s not gonna be the last of its kind.
In fact: we’re just getting started!
Lots of new intel coming in the next few weeks and months 🔥 Stay tuned!
If you want to help the data to get sharper, add your numbers anonymously HERE.
It takes two minutes and feeds the same live dataset.
If you found this useful, forward it to one tech worker in Europe who needs to see it!
Best,
Nicola
As always, feel free to request features and provide feedback on my work, including on this newsletter!
Either here, or in the Discord, if you’re already a paid sub.
For more frequent updates, don’t forget to follow on:
X - for relocation, lifestyle, taxes, tech careers
LinkedIn - for tech careers and remote work
Ig - for travel pics
This article is brought to you by:
Euro Top Tech — the #1 platform for top-paying tech careers in Europe
8,000+ high-paying European tech jobs from big tech, HFT firms and well-funded scale-ups, plus 4,000+ six-figure remote roles.
AI Career Lab: a six-stage path to your next role. It scores your target roles, reviews your CV, shows your exact skills gaps, and preps you for interviews, with a weekly email that keeps you moving.
Application tracker + outreach tools: track your target roles, add jobs from other job boards by pasting their link, track your pipeline by company, and get your networking LinkedIn messages reviewed before you send them.
Live pay data: net salary, tax, yearly savings and quality of life by country and city, built from 1,300+ real engineer reports.
Private guides plus a members’ Discord for connection, feedback and networking.
Remote GOATs — the operating system for high-earning remote workers
Curated board of six-figure remote roles (Europe-remote, global, NA, LATAM, APAC).
AI relocation advisor: decide where to live on taxes, cost of living and lifestyle — data, not vibes.
Six Figure Euro Engineer — work 1:1 with me
Coaching with me, Nicola Amadio (who writes this newsletter). Join the engineers who’ve 2–3x’d their pay and freedom over the past few months.
