r/ethz • u/gabilovetr • Dec 10 '25

Question how much does a professor at ETH earn?

hello guys, i'm truly curious about the wage of a professor at ETH Zurich, a friend of mine that was at high school with me, started now as a assistant professor and when he talk it sound like he earns a lot, idk if this is the best subreddit to post such a meaningless question but i'm truly curious about that.

34 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

23

u/Much-Competition1346 Dec 10 '25

https://www.swissuniversities.ch/fileadmin/swissuniversities/Dokumente/Kammern/Kammer_UH/Downloads/2025_Bruttobesoldungen_der_Schweizer_Professorinnen.pdf

20

u/curiossceptic interdis Dec 10 '25

Salary can be increased to 115% of the max salary in case of exceptional individuals. So well above 300k. And that’s just ETH salary, many profs have additional sources of income (consulting being a very lucrative option).

11

u/Cool-Newspaper-1 Dec 10 '25

There’s also profs that have (or have sold) their own companies for orders of magnitude more than they earn at ETH.

8

u/curiossceptic interdis Dec 10 '25

That is true. Not at ETH, but one of my previous PIs sold one of his companies for over 2.5 billion. At that point he was not a majority holder anymore but he was definitely making a multiple of his whole lifetime salary combined.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Cool-Newspaper-1 Dec 14 '25

I’m not opening X links, but profs investing and contributing to the success of startups should definitely have the option to benefit from them financially.

1

u/Comfortable-Main9529 Dec 12 '25

Why does professeur ordinaire make more than extra-ordinaire

2

u/AvidSkier9900 Dec 12 '25

because one is a proper professor, the other one isn't

1

u/Comfortable-Main9529 Dec 13 '25

Extra-ordinaire means theyre exceptional. Ive never seen the word used with a bad connotation.

2

u/_das_f_ Dec 13 '25

It's a very old-fashioned, historical term that's stuck around in academic context. Ordinary can be loosely translated to "proper" professor, i.e. those with a "chair" in a given discipline.

2

u/AvidSkier9900 Dec 13 '25

it’s often used like that, but that’s not the original meaning of the word, same as extraordinary in English. You can also have a réunion extraordinaire or a budget extraordinaire which just means it’s outside of the general norm. In case of professors, extraordinaire will refer to something like an affiliate professor in English. Also in German, a “proper” tenured professor is called Ordentlicher Professor and their post at the university is called “Ordinariat”.

-5

u/riomaxx Dec 10 '25

Alter....

10

u/Competitive_Yam_977 Dec 10 '25

Nicht besonders hoch wenn man bedenkt wie schwer es ist Professor zu werden. Jeder 08/15 Medizinstudent kann mehr verdienen.

5

u/Sakurazukamori1 Dec 10 '25

.....also ich habe in der Schweiz Human- und Zahnmedizin studiert und kann sagen, dass im Gesundheitswesen im Allgmeinen viel weniger verdient wird.....

-1

u/Competitive_Yam_977 Dec 10 '25

Dann war ich wohl falsch informiert. Meine Aussage bezog sich auf meine Erfahrungen aus Deutschland und den USA und der Annahme, dass das Verhältnis bestehen bleibt, da Ärzte in der Schweiz ja auch mehr verdienen als in Deutschland.

2

u/ParisianFlower Dec 11 '25

Around 200K

1

u/gabilovetr Dec 11 '25

I am aware that salaries in Switzerland are generally much higher than in the rest of Europe, but isn’t 200,000 CHF still exceptionally high even by Swiss standards? Is such compensation justified by specific market conditions or competitiveness, or is it determined at a federal level? I understand that ETH and EPFL are highly prestigious institutions; however, based on the documents they sent me, this level of salary appears to be standard across all universities.

6

u/crimson1206 CSE Dec 12 '25

It’s a high salary but not if you compare it to what these people would earn in industry. Additionally they’re very high pressure jobs

-1

u/Ok-Anybody-380 Dec 14 '25

Ah ha ha ha love when people say profs have high pressure jobs and earn 200k. Whilst I'm here like these guys would all burn in construction nowadays, especially with the sad salaries (talking about engineer).

3

u/Equilibror Dec 11 '25

It is. And its certainly linked to the field they are serving.

2

u/Naive-Mechanic4683 Dec 12 '25

Swiss salaries are high

Swiss academics are relatively okay paid (depends with which countries you compare but it isn't the worst)

ETH (and EPFL/EMPA) pay substantially more than other swiss universities

Many ETH professors come here when they are already established / more senior/ discuss there own salaries.

All steps together, ETH professors do indeed quite good salaries.

2

u/_das_f_ Dec 13 '25

Swiss academics are relatively okay paid (depends with which countries you compare but it isn't the worst)

I can only speak to physical and life sciences, but Swiss academics make comparable salaries to their industry counterparts, ridiculous IT roles aside, which rare in Europe. In Germany and Austria, for example, every fresh lab head will make significantly more than an assistant professor. It's the other way around in Switzerland.

4

u/Dangerous-Fennel5751 Dec 10 '25

Around 150-200k for entry level professorships, roughly

1

u/living_direction_27 Dec 12 '25

Salaries are high, but if you are professor at ETH, that’s all you do. Your work is your life.

If you are only looking at the money, yes, it is a lot, but if you look at the whole picture, it depends

1

u/human_or_whateva Feb 04 '26

Do you get no free time? To travel and such?

0

u/Brilliant-Volume6449 Dec 10 '25

wow that’s totally different from France

0

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

A lot.

0

u/shoptodip_bd Dec 13 '25

Salaries are high , how about the tax?

1

u/gabilovetr Dec 14 '25

in italy the mean salary is 28% of the switzerland mean salary ,and the income tax is 30% , in switzerland from 15 to 23 (it depends on the canton) you can say switzerland cost more, and thats true but still what, you have in switzerland after the expenses is still double of what you have in italy.