I can only speak about France. In Paris you could expect maybe a little bit more than in Vienna, but it vastly depends on the company of course (small or large)

I can only speak about France. In Paris you could expect maybe a little bit more than in Vienna, but it vastly depends on the company of course (small or large). What you need to know if you get an offer in France : Official working hours are 35 hours per week, and ~7 weeks of holidays, but in small companies expect to work much more than 35 hours (and don't expect to be pay for the extra time). Quoted salaries are vast fantasies, not actually tie to any sort of reality. Or, more precisely, born out of the obfuscation dreams of some bureaucrats. A 45k "brut" salary means : - you get ~35k ("net" salary), on which you still need to pay income tax at the end of the year, - your employer pays ~30k of "social contributions" which pays for healthcare, retirement, unemployment insurance (if you are fired you keep getting a large chunk of your salary for a while), and other stuff like URSAAF, which I'm yet to figure out the purpose. So that put the total at ~65k, but you don't see much of it.