The European Commission (using data from Eurydice) (“Teachers’ and School Heads’ Salaries and Allowances in Europe – 2020/2021 | Eurydice”) reports that teachers in Luxembourg earn the highest starting salaries at €78,286 per year. They get a maximum of €136,079 a year in salary once their career has ended. Thus, Luxembourg continues to be, in terms of teacher salaries, the best-paid European nation. Germany comes in second place in the European list with an average starting salary of €60,163 per year for new teachers, placing it ahead of both Sweden (€39,097/year) and Austria (€39,055/year).
The countries that have the lowest incomes for secondary school teachers are Poland (7,908 euro per year), Hungary (8,063 euro per year), and Romania (8,818 euro per year). Bulgaria has the lowest salary at 7,731 euro per year, which is equivalent to little over 644 euro per month.
If we want to draw meaningful conclusions from our comparison, we need to look at how the two nations’ populations are supported economically. In this regard, it is worth noting that the average compensation of teachers tends to track with the country’s GDP per capita: the greater the GDP per capita, the higher the average salary of teachers.
In general, it is important to bring attention to the fact that teaching is a vocation that is losing its appeal at an alarming rate. A significant number of nations in Europe are now contending with a severe recruiting issue. At the beginning of the school year in 2022, there will be a need for 4,000 teachers in France, and there will be a need for 4,400 teachers in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is the most populated area in Germany.
According to the European Commission, the wages of teachers in the majority of nations grew during the 2020-2021 school year, as well as during the previous year, when the Eurydice network also recorded a general rise, although it was occasionally less than inflation. This was the case in the previous year. In countries such as Greece, Luxembourg, and Portugal, for instance, there has been essentially no change in the amount that teachers are paid.
1 United States Dollar equals 1.00 Euro
Citations:
“Teachers’ and School Heads’ Salaries and Allowances in Europe – 2020/2021 | Eurydice.” Teachers’ and School Heads’ Salaries and Allowances in Europe – 2020/2021 | Eurydice, eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu, 5 July 2022, eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/publications/teachers-and-school-heads-salaries-and-allowances-europe-20202021.