Pick your study level and field, then compare real starting salaries across your target countries. We're building this out country by country, starting with Germany.
Gross starting salary, full-time, roughly one year after graduation, with an estimated net (take-home) salary for a single person underneath. UK and Switzerland also show euro equivalents for easier comparison.
Germany: median entry-level gross salaries from the Stepstone Gehaltsreport 2026, cross-referenced with the Profiling Institut Gehaltsranking 2026 (Stepstone + kununu + Destatis).
United Kingdom: Bachelor's figures from the official HESA Graduate Outcomes survey (salary 15 months after graduation, via Prospects Luminate analysis); Master's figures estimated using the documented postgraduate salary premium reported by FindAMasters/ONS.
Netherlands: Keuzegids Universiteiten 2026 starting-salary rankings, based on SEO Economisch Onderzoek research with CBS, via Beaks.nl.
Switzerland: compiled from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS) graduate salary study (via cash.ch/Beobachter) and industry salary reports; fields without a direct BFS figure are estimated from comparable fields.
Italy: based on net monthly salary one year after graduation by discipline group, from the AlmaLaurea graduate survey (via Unicusano's compilation), then grossed up using typical Italian income-tax and social-contribution rates for these income levels, so it's shown gross like every other country here.
Spain: estimated from Fundación CYD graduate employment data and current market salary surveys (Randstad, Michael Page, Adecco), since no single official source publishes first-year salary broken down this way.
Net salaries: modeled, not pulled from a payslip: each figure applies that country's official 2026 income-tax brackets and mandatory employee social-insurance rates to the gross salary above, for a single taxpayer with no children, no church tax, and no other deductions or allowances. Sources: Germany: §32a EStG tariff (Bundesfinanzministerium); United Kingdom: HMRC income tax bands and Class 1 National Insurance rates for 2026/27; Switzerland: ESTV direct federal tax tariff combined with Canton/City of Zurich cantonal and communal rates (other cantons can differ by 20+ percentage points, see our tax-regime notes) and BSV/BVG contribution parameters; Netherlands: Belastingdienst Box 1 rates and heffingskorting formulas; Italy: Agenzia delle Entrate IRPEF brackets and employee detrazioni, INPS contribution rate, plus Lombardy/Milan surtaxes; Spain: Agencia Tributaria state IRPF scale, the Comunidad de Madrid regional scale, and Social Security employee contributions. These are close approximations of what an official calculator would return for this profile, not a substitute for a real tax return or payroll estimate; actual take-home pay depends on your specific circumstances, canton/region of residence, and any allowances or deductions you're entitled to.
Euro equivalents for the UK (£) and Switzerland (CHF) use approximate exchange rates of £1 ≈ €1.17 and CHF 1 ≈ €1.07 (August 2026); these fluctuate, so treat them as indicative, not exact.
Fields don't map 1:1 across national statistics, so figures for "Business Informatics," "Mechanical Engineering," and similar categories are sometimes blended from the closest reported equivalents. Treat these as directional estimates for planning, not guarantees; always verify against the latest source before making decisions.