How the cost of employing manufacturing staff compares across five of Europe's biggest pharma markets - Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark - benchmarked against Ireland. Sourced from Eurostat's official Labour Cost Index, not a private salary-benchmarking vendor.
Total hourly labour cost (wages plus employer social contributions and taxes, minus subsidies) for the whole manufacturing sector (NACE Rev. 2 category C) - the closest granularity Eurostat publishes via open API access. This is a sector-wide average, not a pharma-specific or role-specific figure; pharmaceutical manufacturing typically pays above the all-manufacturing average in every market shown here.
| Country | Labour cost / hour | Data year |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark | €55.00 | 2025 |
| Switzerland | €54.20 | 2016 † |
| Belgium | €51.50 | 2024 |
| Germany | €49.50 | 2025 |
| Netherlands | €47.30 | 2024 |
| Ireland | €42.40 | 2025 |
† Switzerland (an EFTA, non-EU country) last reported to this Eurostat series in 2016 - no more recent figure is available through open API access; treat it as directional only. All other figures are the most recent year Eurostat had published for that country at time of writing.
Europe's largest pharma manufacturing base, anchored by Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Merck KGaA, with a fast-growing biotech corridor around Mainz (BioNTech, CureVac). Regulated by BfArM and the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut.
The Basel region hosts Roche and Novartis, plus Lonza's CDMO network. Switzerland consistently tops European pharma and engineering pay - premiums of 15-25% above Western European averages are typical even before equity. Regulated by Swissmedic.
Combines Philips Healthcare's MedTech strength with biotech innovators like Galapagos and QIAGEN. Regulated by the CBG-MEB.
Home to UCB and Janssen Pharmaceutica - Johnson & Johnson's largest R&D site outside the US. Regulated by FAMHP.
Anchored by Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck, with Leo Pharma in dermatology. Denmark tops this comparison's hourly labour cost figure among the five markets. Regulated by the Danish Medicines Agency (DKMA).
See who's hiring in each market via our Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark company directories, or track the latest EU drug approvals on our EMA Approvals Tracker.
Priya Life Science (2026). EU Pharma & Life Science Salary Guide. Available at: https://priyalifescience.com/eu-pharma-salary-guide (Accessed: 12 August 2026).
Source: Eurostat, Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev), accessed 12 August 2026. © European Union, 1995-2026, reused under Eurostat's copyright policy (reproduction authorised provided the source is acknowledged). Figures cover the whole manufacturing sector, not pharmaceutical manufacturing specifically or any individual role - Eurostat's freely-queryable tables do not break labour cost down to that level of detail; role-specific compensation survey data of that kind is only available as restricted microdata. This guide is for market-context and benchmarking purposes and does not constitute a compensation survey commissioned by Priya Life Science. For Ireland-specific role-by-role benchmarks across 100+ roles, see our Irish Salary Guide.