Hi,

I’ve been offfered a job in Spain (Madrid) earning approx 70,000 Euros + car, etc and I was wondering whether this is considered a good wage in Madrid and would I have a good quality of life on these wages.
Thanks

Hi David.  Obviously it depends on what you do but looking at it I’d say that its not a bad wage for Spain.  I’ve been looking for a while now and have been told that outside of the cities, 30,000 isn’t a bad wage - although that’s probably just so that I will take the job.

I’m interested to know how you found the job and what your area of expertise is.

Cheers
Andy

David, I’d ask first, where are you coming from and what was your salary like there? Then you can get an idea of how that would translate to Madrid in similar lifestyle terms. Also tell us how comfortable you were with the wage you earn back home and what some of your big expenditures are.

Otherwise yeah, 70k is a pretty fat salary out here, the average is about 18k per year.

I’m a Commercial Manager back in London, although I’m originally from Australia (been in London for 2 years).  I was contacted by an employment agency regarding work in the UK and I told them I wasn’t interested in moving companies, however, I was interested in perhaps working in Europe, it all happened from there.

It’s been a few months now since I first posted, I didn’t take the job.  I was flown to Spain for one of 3 interviews but I wasn’t too impressed with the interview or the company after that.  I declined the job and have decided to stay in London…for now!

I’m trying to figure out the same thing. I gross around 40K (USD) per year living in the USA, and I recently applied for a senior level job in my field for 35,000 (GPB; as it was listed) per year. That is 51,397.09 (EUR), which is 69,614.74 (USD) per year. Now, I’m looking to move to Alicante.

If the average income of a Spaniard is 18,000(EUR) per year, and the most reasonable homes start out at about 130,000(EUR; this I determined via my online searching) - thinking in American dollars, most people live in Spain must poverty. Is that right?

Um, no, because the poverty line is set at as an income level proportional to the average income in the country. According to the CIA world fact book the poverty rate in Spain is 19.8%.

I thought exactly the same thing when I was inquiring about coming to London, everyone was telling me that average wage in London was less than 30kGBP per year, and when I realised how expensive rent, restaurants, public transport, etc were I thought that everyone would be living in poverty or sharing a house with 10 other people just to make ends meet !!

The thing is, it’s not at all like that.  Most of the people that I work with are earning well above the 30k, anywhere from 40 to 70k per year and even more.  Most of the good jobs are not necessarily advertised.  Having said that, there are of course people that earn on or below the average wage but people make do and adjust their livestyles to how much they earn.