Research / Where to work in Europe
Where to work in Europe, and what to optimize for
Pay, savings, livability, and competition are four different rankings. This analysis reads them together, by situation: no constraints, early career, family, remote, senior.
Switzerland pays the most (€162k average reported) and banks the most euros too (€51k a year saved). Measured as purchasing power instead (what the savings are worth against each country's own prices), Switzerland drops to 11th and Serbia comes first. The strongest all-round market, blending savings, livability, and open roles, is Poland: a 51% saving rate with 671 curated roles open now. Where you are in your career changes the answer more than any ranking does.
Key findings
- Savings are stored purchasing power, so where you will eventually use them decides how to count them. Switzerland banks the most euros in Europe (€51k a year), but against its own price level that money carries the purchasing power of about €23k in a typically priced European country: 11th in Europe. Serbia banks €32k, worth €41k after the same adjustment: first in Europe. Count plain euros if the money will move somewhere cheaper one day; count adjusted savings if they will fund your life where you earn them. #
- The strongest all-round market is Poland: rank 3 on the blended community board, a 51% reported saving rate, €39k cost-adjusted savings, and 671 curated roles open right now. #
- Engineers working fully remote report keeping €30k a year against €18k for everyone else, and rate their happiness higher too (7.8 vs 7.2). #
- Level beats geography: on the curated board, mid to senior moves modeled savings from €33k to €68k a year. No country move in this data is worth as much as one promotion. #
- Pay is not the whole picture: among countries with ten or more ratings, Czechia reports the highest quality of life, a mix of self-reported happiness (8.3/10) and satisfaction with tax-paid services (8.1/10), across 13 ratings. #
- Apply to one open role in Switzerland and you are up against about 6.7x as many member applications as for a comparable United Kingdom role, and about 11.1x as many as in France. Where you apply changes your odds more than most people assume. #
Methodology & what these numbers are
Three sources, never blended into one number: 1,591 self-reported tech worker submissions (the live dataset behind /data, medians unless noted), 15,417 curated top-tier openings on the job board, each carrying modeled comp and savings, and 2,733 Europe-friendly fully-remote roles.
The competition figures come from a fourth source: the roles members actually apply to. We divide applications by open roles and publish the result as an index: the United Kingdom is set to 100, a country at 200 gets twice as many applications per open role, one at 50 gets half. Countries with too few applications are left out rather than guessed, and we publish the ratios, not the raw counts. Members skew experienced and motivated or early career and ambitious, so read this as our members' demand, not the whole market's. Numbers refresh hourly. Updated September 2026.
Cite this data
Euro Top Tech, Where to Work in Europe as a Software Engineer (2026): pay, savings, livability, and application competition across European tech markets. https://www.eurotoptech.com/research/where-to-work-europe
The same countries, ranked by what you keep
Community self-reports by country: average pay, savings, and the saving rate, with savings also adjusted for cost of living. Sort by whichever lens is yours: cost-adjusted if you will live where you save, nominal saved if the money is headed somewhere else later, since a euro saved in a pricey country buys just as much abroad. Overall rank is the blended financial-plus-livability board from the data explorer; hover a column header for what it means. Countries with 15 or more reports.
| Country | Reports | Pre-tax pay | Saved / yr | Save rate | Cost-adjusted | Overall rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serbia | 39 | €81,084 | €31,737 | 50% | €41,132 | 1 |
| Lithuania | 25 | €103,456 | €41,735 | 56% | €40,556 | 11 |
| Poland | 112 | €104,490 | €39,922 | 51% | €38,668 | 3 |
| Romania | 41 | €92,189 | €34,215 | 52% | €37,767 | 10 |
| Czechia | 23 | €96,165 | €36,148 | 49% | €37,167 | 4 |
| Croatia | 15 | €80,933 | €24,400 | 42% | €32,575 | 7 |
| Finland | 20 | €137,633 | €39,800 | 48% | €31,725 | 17 |
| Belgium | 21 | €107,384 | €30,667 | 48% | €28,844 | 13 |
| Spain | 153 | €82,697 | €25,402 | 46% | €24,788 | 24 |
| Netherlands | 81 | €130,801 | €37,106 | 44% | €23,127 | 14 |
| Switzerland | 98 | €161,990 | €51,347 | 43% | €22,967 | 6 |
| Bulgaria | 19 | €69,228 | €23,241 | 41% | €22,627 | 9 |
| Hungary | 83 | €46,048 | €12,618 | 41% | €22,175 | · |
| France | 54 | €96,480 | €26,481 | 42% | €22,082 | 20 |
| Ireland | 31 | €143,076 | €32,285 | 38% | €21,924 | 18 |
| Denmark | 52 | €100,729 | €26,958 | 43% | €21,375 | 21 |
| United Kingdom | 85 | €139,744 | €36,132 | 41% | €20,863 | 19 |
| Germany | 223 | €96,550 | €21,542 | 37% | €18,799 | 23 |
| Sweden | 25 | €78,756 | €17,593 | 34% | €18,015 | 15 |
| Austria | 28 | €72,624 | €19,250 | 41% | €17,460 | 16 |
| Italy | 144 | €58,800 | €15,506 | 39% | €17,247 | 27 |
| Portugal | 82 | €62,050 | €13,771 | 32% | €14,137 | 25 |
The conversion trap: Portugal is one of the most-reported countries here (82 reports) and converts pay into savings worst among the big markets: a 32% saving rate and €14,137 cost-adjusted.
Supply is concentrated: the four biggest markets hold the majority of the 15,417 curated roles. The full keep-versus-access view, including cities, lives in the compensation report.
Where everyone else is applying
Everything above describes supply and outcomes. This is demand: which roles members actually apply to, divided by the roles open. The United Kingdom is set to 100, so a country at 200 draws twice as many applications per open role and one at 50 draws half. It is the only view that says where you are likely to get in, rather than where you would like to be.
Competition index: applications per open role
Not charted yet: Denmark, Italy, Romania, Estonia, Portugal. Too few member applications so far; each joins the chart as data accrues.
The mismatch to exploit: France pairs 932 open roles with the lowest competition on the board (index 60), while Switzerland is the most contested at 668. Targeting only Switzerland is a crowded strategy: everyone in the data wants it.
The remote board is the most crowded door: fully-remote roles draw 5.2x the applications per open role of the on-site board. Remote pays the best and is the hardest to get, so go in with a strong profile and more applications, not fewer.
Demand share vs supply share, by level
| Level | Open roles | Supply share | Demand share | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 828 | 5.4% | 8.4% | 1.56 |
| Mid | 5,755 | 37.5% | 39.3% | 1.05 |
| Senior | 7,979 | 51.9% | 41.6% | 0.80 |
| Staff | 649 | 4.2% | 10% | 2.38 |
| Principal | 155 | 1% | 0.7% | 0.73 |
Staff roles are the most over-subscribed rung (10% of applications on 4.2% of supply). The quietest is principal: if you are principal-level and applying to principal roles, you are in the least contested part of the market you will ever see.
So where should you work? It depends on your situation
There is no single best country, only a best one per situation. Every card gives the pick, the number behind it, and what it costs you: no country in this data wins without giving something up.
Poland
Runner-up: Serbia
Because: The only market near the top on all four axes at once: overall rank 3, a 51% saving rate, €39k cost-adjusted savings, and 671 open curated roles.
Costs you: A lower ceiling. The board's median modeled package there is €104k against €201k in the United Kingdom, so the top end is genuinely smaller even though the keep is higher.
Ireland or Netherlands
Entry roles are under 5% of the board: supply first
Because: Real entry supply and savings that work out: Ireland has 59 open entry roles with €25k reported kept; Netherlands has 42 with €17k.
Costs you: The deepest entry market, United Kingdom (266 roles), pays juniors well and takes it back in living costs: members there report just €9k kept. Treat it as a place to get the first title, not to accumulate.
Poland, decisively
Runner-up: Bulgaria
Because: Households of three or more in Poland report €35k kept a year against €25k for the next country, across 32 family reports, with happiness at 8.1/10 and tax-funded services at 7.9/10.
Costs you: Switzerland is the anti-pattern: singles keep €44k, families on €140k pre-tax keep €20k. A family absorbs the entire premium, though families there still rate happiness 7.1/10 and tax-funded services 8.1/10.
Switzerland, then the UK
Only if you are single or senior
Because: The board's median modeled package in Switzerland is €305k, with a 90th percentile of €391k. The UK is the only large market with both a high ceiling (€201k) and deep supply (4,590 roles).
Costs you: A queue: each open role in Switzerland draws about 6.7x the applications a United Kingdom role does, the most contested market we track, and conversion: cost-adjusted keep there is €23k a year.
Remote pay, Serbia cost base
The single best cell in the data
Because: Fully-remote engineers based in Serbia report €100k pre-tax and €55k kept a year, across 9 reports. Poland is the same play at €45k.
Costs you: The queue: remote roles draw 5.2x the applications per open role that the on-site board does, and price opacity: most remote listings publish no pay figure, so you negotiate blind.
Czechia or Switzerland
The satisfaction composite, not the pay table
Because: Czechia tops the satisfaction composite: happiness 8.3/10 with tax and infrastructure at 8.1/10; Switzerland follows at 7.8 and 8.5.
Costs you: Sample depth varies by country; check the per-country counts on the data explorer before moving on one number.
Romania
Highest keep at a fixed level
Because: Held at the senior level, Romania leads the keep table: €40k reported saved on a €100k median package (27 reports).
Costs you: Market depth: Romania lists 299 curated roles, so one employer leaving moves your options materially.
France, at principal level
Deep market, quiet queue
Because: Two under-contested things stack: each open role in France draws about 40% fewer applications than a United Kingdom role (932 roles open), and principal level draws just 0.7% of applications on 1% of supply.
Costs you: Conversion: cost-adjusted keep in France is €22k a year. This is a route to getting hired, not to keeping the most.
Target the anywhere bucket
696 roles with no country restriction
Because: Of 2,733 Europe-friendly remote roles, 696 name no country at all. Where countries are named, United Kingdom dominates with 674 mentions, 448 of them exclusive.
Costs you: Salary transparency and seniority fit: most of the remote board is tagged entry to mid, so the senior remote market is thinner than the on-site one.
What to prioritize, ranked by effect size
Ordered by how much each is worth in this data, not by how often it gets advised.
- Get to senior; everything else is smaller. Mid to senior moves modeled savings from €33k to €68k on the board and reported savings from €15k to €23k in the community. There are also more senior roles open than mid ones, so the market widens as you climb.
- Optimize the saving rate, not the salary. Across 700 rated reports, happiness correlates with the saving rate at 0.33, with absolute savings at 0.27, and with pre-tax pay at only 0.21. The share you keep predicts satisfaction better than the number you earn.
- Separate where you earn from where you spend. Fully-remote engineers report €30k kept against €18k for everyone else. Paired with a low-cost base it is the largest lever available without a promotion.
- Target employer tier before geography. Senior openings on the curated board advertise €165k against €89k reported across all employers, about 1.9x for the same title in the same countries. The company moves more money than the country.
- Apply where the queue is short, not where the brand is loud. Competition spans 11.1x across the large markets alone, from Switzerland at 668 to France at 60. That spread is larger than most of the pay differences people move for.
- Check the city, not just the country. On the blended city board, Krakow ranks 1 and Zurich ranks 2, while Berlin, the deepest-sampled city, sits 25th. Country averages hide the spread that matters.
Where this could be wrong
Livability tops rest on thin samples. Some of the best satisfaction scores come from countries with fewer than ten ratings; the blended board shrinks thin samples toward the mean, but treat those rows as promising rather than proven, and check the counts on the data explorer.
The two pay ladders are different populations. Board figures are modeled offers at curated top-tier employers; community figures are self-reports across all employers, and the roughly 1.9x gap between them is a real selection effect. They are never blended into one number here.
The competition index is a member panel. It measures what paying members apply to: high-intent, not the open market. Countries below the sample floors are excluded or marked directional, and absolute counts stay unpublished because the ratios carry the signal.
Frequently asked
Where do software engineers save the most in Europe?
There are two answers, depending on whether you mean raw euros or what those euros buy. In absolute terms, engineers report saving the most in Switzerland (€51k/yr), Lithuania (€42k/yr), Poland (€40k/yr). Adjusted for cost of living, the order changes to Serbia (€41k/yr), Lithuania (€41k/yr), Poland (€39k/yr), because the high-paying markets hand much of the difference back in living costs. Use the absolute list if the savings will move somewhere cheaper one day, the adjusted list if they will fund your life where you earn them.
Which European country is easiest to get hired in right now?
Among the large markets, France currently draws the least competition on our boards: each open role there gets about 40% fewer applications than a United Kingdom role, across 932 open curated roles. Switzerland is the most contested, drawing roughly 6.7 times the applications per role that the United Kingdom does.
What is the best European country for software engineers with families?
Poland: households of three or more there report €35k kept per year, against €25k in Bulgaria. Switzerland shows the opposite pattern: its premium goes to singles (€44k kept) while families keep €20k.
Is fully-remote work worth it for European engineers?
On savings, yes: fully-remote engineers report €30k kept per year against €18k for on-site, and higher happiness (7.84 vs 7.16). The catch is competition: remote roles draw roughly 5.2 times the applications per open role, so remote favors engineers who already have leverage.