Research / Europe value map
Europe's best and worst places for value
Cost of living against quality of life for software engineers, charted the way the classic city value maps do it, but from 1,492 crowdsourced reports by engineers living there.
Prague gives engineers the most quality of life per euro right now, with Krakow, Warsaw, Belgrade close behind. At the other end of the cost scale, Zurich, Basel are expensive and worth it. The bad value quadrant, above-median cost for below-median quality of life, currently holds Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Paris and more.
Key findings
- Prague is the best value city in the data right now: engineers there report a livability score of 77.5 on a cost of living of €21,105 per person per year, about 39% of what living in Zurich costs (€54,692, livability 80). #
- The best value quadrant is a Central and Eastern European story: 83% of its cities (Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Belgrade, Tallinn) are in the region, pairing below-median costs with above-median quality of life. #
- High cost does not buy quality of life in Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Paris and 2 more: all sit above the median on cost and below it on livability. The most-reported of them is Berlin (93 reports, livability 59.4 at €24,067 per person). #
- Cheap is not the same as good value: Zagreb, Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Turin sit below the median on cost and on quality of life. If the goal is savings alone they work; as places to live, engineers rate them lower. #
- At country level, Czechia leads the value board (livability 90.7 at €18,885 per person), while the most-reported country in the bad value quadrant is Germany: 210 engineers there report above-median costs with below-median quality of life. #
Cities: quality of life per euro
Every dot is a city with at least 5 pay reports and 5 quality-of-life ratings. Up means engineers there rate life better; right means living there costs more of what they earn. The dashed lines split the field at the median, so each quadrant is relative to the other cities on the chart, and dot size shows how many engineers the numbers rest on.
Europe's best and worst cities for value
Countries: the same map, zoomed out
Country averages smooth out the city extremes and rest on deeper samples (every country here has at least 15 pay reports). The pattern holds: value concentrates in Central and Eastern Europe, and several of the highest-paying markets buy less life quality per euro than their reputations suggest.
Europe's best and worst countries for value
Methodology & what these numbers are
One source: 1,492 approved self-reported submissions behind the data explorer, aggregated per city and country exactly as /data does it (averages per place). Cost of living is average after-tax pay minus yearly savings, divided by the people an engineer supports: what engineers actually spend, not a shopping-basket index. Quality of life is the Livability composite: the average of each place's developer happiness and infrastructure ratings, scaled 0 to 100 across places.
Both axes are then converted to percentile ranks among the places charted, which is how the classic value maps spread the field: position shows order, not euro gaps, and the quadrants split at the median. Cities need 5 pay reports and 5 ratings to appear, countries 15 and 5, mirroring the thresholds on /data. Full definitions live in the public methodology. Numbers recompute hourly. Updated August 2026.
Cite this data
Euro Top Tech, Europe Value Map (2026): cost of living vs quality of life for software engineers across European cities and countries, from crowdsourced engineer reports. https://www.eurotoptech.com/research/europe-value-map
The numbers behind the dots
Sorted by value: quality-of-life rank minus cost rank. The same aggregates, sliceable by tab, live on the data explorer.
Cities
| City | Region | Cost of living /person/yr | Livability | Avg net pay | Avg savings /yr | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PragueCzechia | Central & Eastern Europe | €21,105 | 77.5 | €64,533 | €28,888 | 19 |
| KrakowPoland | Central & Eastern Europe | €21,254 | 78.9 | €75,234 | €33,687 | 21 |
| WarsawPoland | Central & Eastern Europe | €20,956 | 70.1 | €80,338 | €42,711 | 45 |
| BelgradeSerbia | Central & Eastern Europe | €15,644 | 63.7 | €60,531 | €29,370 | 28 |
| ZagrebCroatia | Central & Eastern Europe | €14,829 | 61.4 | €49,733 | €18,000 | 9 |
| TallinnEstonia | Central & Eastern Europe | €21,844 | 72.4 | €47,266 | €20,125 | 8 |
| HamburgGermany | Western & Northern Europe | €18,306 | 63.1 | €52,632 | €15,738 | 13 |
| ViennaAustria | Western & Northern Europe | €22,330 | 72.4 | €46,835 | €18,179 | 21 |
| Cluj-NapocaRomania | Central & Eastern Europe | €19,520 | 61.8 | €63,621 | €32,615 | 13 |
| BarcelonaSpain | Southern Europe | €22,125 | 65.7 | €62,291 | €28,539 | 54 |
| BucharestRomania | Central & Eastern Europe | €15,603 | 55.7 | €68,459 | €38,200 | 15 |
| TurinItaly | Southern Europe | €18,955 | 60 | €39,094 | €14,233 | 19 |
| MunichGermany | Western & Northern Europe | €23,492 | 67.9 | €52,602 | €17,751 | 40 |
| LisbonPortugal | Southern Europe | €17,810 | 55.3 | €45,704 | €16,218 | 34 |
| ZurichSwitzerland | Western & Northern Europe | €54,692 | 80 | €138,522 | €60,778 | 55 |
| StockholmSweden | Western & Northern Europe | €20,971 | 60.5 | €53,965 | €15,562 | 16 |
| VilniusLithuania | Central & Eastern Europe | €23,964 | 65.6 | €70,813 | €36,122 | 21 |
| BaselSwitzerland | Western & Northern Europe | €39,831 | 75.3 | €109,048 | €53,286 | 7 |
| MilanItaly | Southern Europe | €22,200 | 60.8 | €44,203 | €16,499 | 38 |
| PortoPortugal | Southern Europe | €19,488 | 52.5 | €40,984 | €12,205 | 25 |
| AmsterdamNetherlands | Western & Northern Europe | €36,110 | 66.3 | €95,781 | €43,591 | 51 |
| HelsinkiFinland | Western & Northern Europe | €26,240 | 63.9 | €96,512 | €49,077 | 13 |
| MadridSpain | Southern Europe | €21,988 | 59.5 | €50,957 | €23,640 | 50 |
| RomeItaly | Southern Europe | €19,763 | 44 | €30,258 | €9,431 | 13 |
| LondonUnited Kingdom | Western & Northern Europe | €39,648 | 64.7 | €106,690 | €47,194 | 51 |
| BerlinGermany | Western & Northern Europe | €24,067 | 59.4 | €62,235 | €22,388 | 93 |
| ParisFrance | Western & Northern Europe | €26,661 | 58.1 | €70,373 | €32,586 | 35 |
| CopenhagenDenmark | Western & Northern Europe | €24,862 | 53.2 | €62,059 | €26,998 | 43 |
| DublinIreland | Western & Northern Europe | €29,979 | 52.9 | €90,142 | €38,653 | 20 |
Countries
| Country | Region | Cost of living /person/yr | Livability | Avg net pay | Avg savings /yr | Reports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czechia | Central & Eastern Europe | €18,885 | 90.7 | €68,514 | €31,955 | 22 |
| Serbia | Central & Eastern Europe | €14,774 | 58.2 | €56,539 | €27,097 | 32 |
| Romania | Central & Eastern Europe | €17,902 | 45.5 | €64,738 | €33,570 | 40 |
| Poland | Central & Eastern Europe | €20,392 | 74.1 | €76,870 | €39,043 | 101 |
| Austria | Western & Northern Europe | €20,957 | 75.4 | €45,591 | €18,710 | 26 |
| Sweden | Western & Northern Europe | €19,278 | 59 | €52,307 | €17,847 | 24 |
| Bulgaria | Central & Eastern Europe | €21,201 | 59.8 | €56,101 | €21,754 | 18 |
| Belgium | Western & Northern Europe | €21,309 | 66.3 | €65,216 | €30,842 | 19 |
| Spain | Southern Europe | €20,597 | 44.2 | €55,593 | €25,316 | 150 |
| Italy | Southern Europe | €17,994 | 25.8 | €39,763 | €14,905 | 127 |
| Switzerland | Western & Northern Europe | €44,554 | 81 | €119,937 | €50,670 | 95 |
| Portugal | Southern Europe | €19,175 | 20.1 | €42,861 | €13,439 | 76 |
| Germany | Western & Northern Europe | €22,617 | 39.3 | €58,574 | €21,630 | 210 |
| Netherlands | Western & Northern Europe | €31,911 | 43.7 | €79,139 | €33,150 | 78 |
| France | Western & Northern Europe | €24,315 | 37.1 | €63,454 | €27,691 | 51 |
| Finland | Western & Northern Europe | €25,328 | 37.8 | €82,731 | €39,800 | 20 |
| United Kingdom | Western & Northern Europe | €34,834 | 42.7 | €87,958 | €36,038 | 80 |
| Denmark | Western & Northern Europe | €26,009 | 28 | €62,834 | €25,881 | 50 |
| Ireland | Western & Northern Europe | €29,083 | 21.4 | €81,013 | €31,329 | 30 |
Where this could be wrong
Percentile axes stretch small gaps. Ranks spread the field evenly, so two cities a few livability points apart can sit far apart on the chart. The tables above carry the raw numbers; read close calls there, not off the dots.
Cost here is spending, not prices. Pay minus savings bakes lifestyle in: a city where engineers earn more and spend more reads as expensive even if groceries are cheap. That is the measure we want (it reflects the life engineers actually live), but it is not a price index.
Some dots rest on thin samples. The gates (5 reports for cities) keep noise down, not out. Dot size shows the sample; small dots move as new submissions land. If your city is missing or thin, adding your numbers literally puts it on the map.
Frequently asked
What are the best value cities in Europe for software engineers?
By crowdsourced cost of living against reported quality of life, the best value cities right now are Prague (livability 77.5, €21,105/person/yr), Krakow (livability 78.9, €21,254/person/yr), Warsaw (livability 70.1, €20,956/person/yr), Belgrade (livability 63.7, €15,644/person/yr), Tallinn (livability 72.4, €21,844/person/yr). All pair above-median quality of life with below-median living costs.
Which European cities are the worst value for engineers?
Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen currently combine above-median living costs with below-median reported quality of life. That does not make them bad places to work (pay and job supply are separate questions), but engineers there report getting the least life quality per euro spent.
Which European countries give software engineers the most for their money?
Czechia (livability 90.7 at €18,885/person/yr), Serbia (livability 58.2 at €14,774/person/yr), Romania (livability 45.5 at €17,902/person/yr), Poland (livability 74.1 at €20,392/person/yr). Each ranks above the median on reported quality of life and below it on cost of living among the 19 countries with enough data.
How is value measured on this map?
Two axes, both percentile ranks among the places shown. Cost of living is what engineers actually spend: average after-tax pay minus yearly savings, per person supported. Quality of life is the Livability score from the /data explorer, the average of developer happiness and infrastructure ratings from engineers living in each place. The quadrants split at the median of each axis.