Public research evidence

Academic Pay Tracker

Cohort-specific evidence keeps PhD in Ireland, PhD abroad, postdoc in Ireland, and postdoc abroad separate.

Which cohort is this evidence about?

Loaded coverage and limits are stated before the charts.

PhD in Ireland

Loaded

GOI stipend, Irish public stipend sample, Dublin rent, national rent, living wage, and poverty threshold.

PhD abroad

Initial slice

Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, and Austria are loaded using source-backed PhD income benchmarks and existing city cost records.

Postdoc in Ireland

Loaded

IUA PD1 and PD2 salary, Dublin house-price capacity, salary history, and career context.

Postdoc abroad

Loaded

European entry postdoc salary, rent, non-rent essentials, and international salary benchmarks.

Postdoc abroad compared with Ireland: does salary survive rent and essentials?

Answer: Dublin leaves €4,597 of gross entry pay after annual rent and non-rent essentials, ranking #15 of 25. Luxembourg City leaves the most in the current slice at €45,369.

Evidence caveat: Source-backed city slice only: gross entry postdoc salary, apartment rent, and non-rent essentials are compared before tax. Tax, pension, healthcare, visa costs, household composition, and shared-housing splits are not modelled; rent and essentials sources vary by city, so confidence must be read beside the selected benchmark.

European cohort

25 cities

15 capital cities, 2026 salaries

Most left after costs

Luxembourg City

€45,369

Highest rent burden

Rome

84%

Postdoc abroad: where do rent and essentials leave entry salary?

Dublin is included as the Irish benchmark inside a European postdoc cohort. This chart does not describe PhD stipends.

Annual rentNon-rent essentialsSalary left after rent and essentials

Salary uses gross annual entry-level postdoc or closest national scale proxy, not net pay after tax.

Rent is monthly apartment rent annualized; Dublin uses CSO/RTB all-property rent for consistency with the Irish tracker.

Non-rent essentials use LivingCostIndex single-person monthly cost without rent, converted from USD to EUR.

Rows marked as medium or low confidence should be replaced first as official country-level sources are added.

Sources

104 source references

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