Methodology

Step 1 — OECD: the national wage

The starting point for each of the 20 countries is the OECD series Average annual wages (dataset code AV_AN_WAGE): average annual wages per full-time equivalent dependent employee, in current prices and in the country's own national currency. We take that figure as published — we do not adjust, smooth or re-weight it. The reference year currently used across the site is 2025, and every page states the reference year it is showing.

Source: OECD — Average annual wages (AV_AN_WAGE), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Terms: OECD Terms and Conditions — https://www.oecd.org/termsandconditions/

Step 2 — Eurostat: the sector pay ratio

To move from a national average to a sector figure, we use Eurostat national accounts by industry (nama_10_a64 compensation of employees, divided by nama_10_a64_e number of employees). For the 14 EU countries we cover, plus Norway, we use each country's own row: dividing a NACE Rev.2 activity's average pay by that country's whole-economy average gives its sector pay ratio. For Canada and Australia, which Eurostat does not cover, we apply the EU-27 average sector structure and mark the result clearly as an estimate. For Switzerland, only the sectors with Swiss data are shown; the rest are hidden rather than estimated. The United States and the United Kingdom have no sector comparison at all — their pages use occupation-level data from national sources instead. Note that nama_10_a64 measures pay per employee, not per full-time equivalent (FTE), so sectors with many part-time workers — such as healthcare, education, retail and accommodation/food service — appear lower than a full-time worker's actual pay would be.

Source: Eurostat — National accounts by industry (nama_10_a64, nama_10_a64_e), Eurostat, Statistical Office of the European Union. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) — https://ec.europa.eu/info/legal-notice_en

Sources for the calculator tools

The tools use these official datasets. Price levels and inflation are checked daily, global income percentiles and OECD tax rates weekly; if a source is unavailable or incomplete, the last verified figures stay in use.

Source: World Bank — PPP conversion factor, private consumption (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP), World Bank, World Development Indicators. Used by: Moving Abroad, Global Rank. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) — https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/legal/terms-of-use-for-datasets

Source: World Bank — Consumer price index (FP.CPI.TOTL), World Bank, World Development Indicators. Used by: Raise vs Inflation. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) — https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/legal/terms-of-use-for-datasets

Source: World Bank — Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), global headcount by daily income line, World Bank. Used by: Global Rank. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) — https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/legal/terms-of-use-for-datasets

Source: OECD — Taxing Wages (DSD_TAX_WAGES_DECOMP@DF_TW_DECOMP): net personal average tax rate and average gross wage, single person without children, 50%–250% of the average wage, reference year 2025, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Used by: Net salary calculator. Licence: OECD Terms and Conditions — https://www.oecd.org/termsandconditions/

Step 3 — our calculation: the final benchmark

The published benchmark is our own arithmetic, not an official statistic:

national average wage (OECD) × sector pay ratio (Eurostat) = gross annual sector benchmark

• The result is a gross annual figure in the country's own currency.
• Monthly values divide it by 12; hourly values divide it by 2,080 working hours.
• The comparison in the calculator is simply your entered salary against that benchmark, expressed as a percentage difference; ±1% is treated as “on average”.

Limitations you should know

• Sector figures derived in step 3 are modelled estimates, not directly measured country-specific sector salaries. For Canada and Australia they rest on the EU-27 average sector structure rather than national data, and for Switzerland only the sectors with Swiss data are shown.
• Sector ratios may refer to an earlier reference year than the national wage, because the two agencies publish on different schedules.
• Figures are gross, before tax and social contributions, and are not adjusted for exchange rates, cost of living or purchasing power.
• Averages hide the distribution: role, seniority, employer size, region and working hours can move actual pay far from the average.
• Net-to-gross helpers use a single rounded country multiplier and are a rough orientation only, never a tax calculation. For your exact local net take-home pay, see our list of trusted local net-salary calculators →

Why these two sources, not others

Salary data can come from several kinds of sources, each with a different trade-off. Job board listings reflect advertised, not paid, salaries, and skew toward roles actively being recruited for. Crowdsourced salary submissions are self-reported, unverified and skew toward people motivated to share — usually those who feel over- or under-paid. Employer-provided benchmarks from recruitment or payroll companies carry a direct commercial incentive to make their own client base look competitive.

OECD and Eurostat figures are neither self-reported nor commercially motivated: they are compiled from official national statistical offices, using standardised definitions agreed between governments, specifically so figures are comparable across countries. That standardisation is also their main limitation — a single European sector ratio cannot capture every national labour market's structure, which is why we document that limitation explicitly below rather than presenting the result as more precise than it is.

How each tool on this site calculates its result

Every calculator on this site follows the same principle: a clearly stated formula applied to a named public data source, with its limitations stated alongside the result.

• Salary benchmark (homepage): OECD average annual wage × Eurostat sector pay ratio (see steps 1–3 above).
• Net salary calculator: OECD Taxing Wages “net personal average tax rate” (% of gross wage), interpolated between the wage-level brackets nearest your entered salary's position relative to that country's OECD average wage. Assumes a single person with no children.
• Global income rank: your net salary converted to purchasing-power-parity dollars, compared against the World Bank's global income distribution (Poverty and Inequality Platform).
• Moving abroad: your salary and an offer converted using World Bank PPP conversion factors, so the comparison reflects local purchasing power rather than a raw currency exchange rate.
• Raise vs inflation: your raise compared against your country's Consumer Price Index change over the same period (World Bank).
• Future salary projector: compound growth at your assumed rate, deflated by your assumed inflation rate.
• Savings goal: a standard future-value annuity formula, solved for the required monthly contribution.
• Buy vs rent: a year-by-year net-worth simulation comparing mortgage amortisation and homeownership costs against renting and investing the difference, using your assumed rates for appreciation, rent growth and investment return.

Data governance and update log

Every dataset behind this site refreshes automatically, on its own schedule, matched to how often the underlying source actually changes:

If a source is temporarily unreachable, the site keeps serving the last successfully verified figures rather than falling back to an estimate — you can always see which reference year a figure uses on the page itself. Every dataset is downloadable in full on the data page, so any number on this site can be checked independently against its source. If you believe a figure is wrong, write to us through the contact page and we will correct it or explain the source.