My Future Career is a survey about students career expectations, Universum asked 224’542 students in 16 countries what they expected to earn in their first job after their studies. The results show that Swiss students expect to earn the most (80’403 CHF per year), followed by the Danish (72’111 CHF), Norwegians (64’681 CHF) and Germans (57’133 CHF).

The results do not represent current salary levels per country, but an indication of graduates’ salary demands. Each respondent was specifically asked: “What is your expected annual salary before taxes at your first employer after graduation?”. All 16 countries combined, the mean forecasted salary was 42’955 CHF per annum.

The students that expect to earn the least are from Italy (27’717 CHF), Poland (15’012 CHF), Russia (13’182 CHF) and China (8’440 CHF). If you compare the Swiss to the Chinese, the difference is substantial, since the Swiss would earn more than nine times more than their Chinese counterparts.

Students, whose salary expectations were in the middle-range, from highest to lowest, were: French (47’472CHF), Swedish (47’345 CHF), Austrian (43’081 CHF) and Dutch (41’685 CHF).
Anne Margrethe Mannerfelt, market unit manager of Western Europe at Universum explained, “Following this recession, graduates aren’t expecting big pay checks and are willing to make concessions, so long as they get the work experience they so badly need”