PhD researchers’ salaries remain below those of upper secondary school teachers, Eurodoc finds

Eurodoc has found that, in most European countries, doctoral researchers’ salaries remain well below those of upper secondary school teachers, which it considers a minimum benchmark.

The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc) published on 21/09/2026 a comparative analysis of PhD student funding across Europe for 2024-2025.

It said that Eurodoc maintains that "the salary for doctoral researchers in Europe should at least be comparable to that of an upper secondary school teacher. These are also highly educated and mostly publicly employed professionals. However, in most countries, this remains far from the reality."

The report showed that the lowest annual remuneration was recorded in Ukraine and Hungary, at just €2,263 and €4,615, respectively. By contrast…