What AI roles in Switzerland pay, by role, seniority and city

Most Swiss employers don't publish pay in their job ads, so the salary figures in this post are SwissAIJob's own estimates, not salaries quoted by employers. For every listing, a language model reads the job ad and estimates the lower end of the yearly gross salary, rounded to CHF 5’000; the range shown on the site is that lower bound plus CHF 20’000 (or the employer's own range, when the ad states one), and this post works with the midpoint of each range. The live numbers are on the salaries page, and the methodology explains how each estimate is made and where it can go wrong.

All figures are as of 1 November 2026, from the 530 AI and machine learning listings live on SwissAIJob that day at 136 employers, computed with the same rules as the salaries page. Breakdowns the page doesn't have (job title, employer type, internships) are explained where they appear, and official statistics, published pay ranges and research are used to check the estimates.

In short

• Median estimate at companies: CHF 92’500 a year for junior roles, CHF 110’000 for mid-level and CHF 140’000 for senior and above, from 368 live listings on 1 November 2026 (internships and university roles excluded).
• Higher up: lead roles CHF 145’000, principal roles CHF 170’000. Half of all company listings fall between CHF 110’000 and CHF 146’000.
• Few ads state pay: 5 of 530 live listings name a salary in Swiss francs (0.9%). Since mid-April 2026 it was 54 of 1,886 ads (2.9%), from 10 of 204 employers.
• PhD and postdoc pay follows fixed scales: ETH Zürich pays doctoral students CHF 53’500–83’500 depending on rate and year, EPFL CHF 55’225 in the first year; postdocs start at CHF 92’500 at ETH and CHF 88’000 at EPFL (2026).
• Zürich has the highest median at CHF 140’000 across levels (283 listings); Geneva (CHF 110’000) and Lausanne (CHF 120’000) are lower mostly because different employers hire there.
• Big tech pays more than these estimates: Google software engineers in the Zürich area report a median total compensation of CHF 291’358 on levels.fyi (self-reported, including stock and bonus).

How the estimates are made

Each new listing goes through the same estimation step, described on the methodology page. The model (Gemini 2.5 Flash) gets the cleaned title, company, sector, role, location, job type and description. Its instructions carry Swiss benchmarks by employer type (global tech, mid-size Swiss companies, consulting, startups, academia) and adjustments by seniority, and tell it to use the ad's own figure when the ad states a salary or a doctoral pay scale. Since October 2026 it also sees the estimates already made for similar titles at the same employer, so one role doesn't get two different numbers.

Every estimate is a base salary. Bonuses and equity are not included, and at global tech companies they are a large part of pay: in self-reported data for Google in the Zürich area, stock and bonus make up about a third of total compensation (see Big tech: treat the estimates as a floor).

The figures below use the rules of the salaries page:

• only listings live on 1 November 2026, internships left out;
• three levels: junior (including entry level), mid, and senior and above (senior, lead, principal);
• university roles (PhD, postdoc, teaching) don't count in the level and city figures, because they follow fixed scales; they appear as their own group and get their own section;
• each listing counts with the midpoint of its estimated range, and every figure is a median.

One caveat runs through the whole post. Because the model is given benchmark tiers by employer type, part of the difference between, say, a startup and a global tech company is built into the estimate. The section on published pay further down checks them against the ads that do state a salary and against self-reported data.

Pay by seniority

The AI job market here is senior-heavy: 69% of company listings are senior, lead or principal roles, and only 20 are junior, which makes the junior figure the least reliable of the three. One in four company listings has a midpoint of CHF 150’000 or more, and 6 of 368 reach CHF 200’000.

The levels have been stable. Across all 1,062 company listings with an estimate that went live on SwissAIJob since mid-April 2026, the medians were CHF 95’000 (junior), CHF 110’000 (mid) and CHF 140’000 (senior and above).

For scale, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office puts the median wage across the whole economy at CHF 7’024 a month in 2024, about CHF 84’300 a year. In the information and communication sector the median was CHF 9’473 a month (about CHF 113’700 a year, upper quartile CHF 146’200), and for employees with a university degree (UNI or ETH) CHF 10’533 (about CHF 126’400) (FSO, 2025a; FSO, 2025b; FSO, 2025c). These monthly figures include a twelfth of the 13th salary and of bonuses, so twelve times the monthly figure is a fair yearly comparison. The AI listings sit above both, which fits a sample where two in three roles are senior. For a personal benchmark, the FSO's Salarium calculator draws on the same survey.

Pay by job title

The site's "Role" filter has only five broad values, so for this post every live listing was sorted into a job-title family by keywords in its title (first match wins: postdoc, PhD, research scientist, research engineer, data scientist, AI engineer, ML engineer, solutions and forward deployed, software, consultant, product, sales). Families with at least 10 listings are shown; a dot needs at least 3 listings at that level.

• Research scientists have the highest senior median, CHF 160’000 (34 of 49 listings are senior). More than half of them are at global tech companies and AI labs. See research scientist jobs and research jobs.
• Solutions architects and forward deployed engineers reach CHF 145’000 at senior level; 40 of their 45 listings are senior.
• ML and computer vision engineers come to CHF 115’000 at mid level and CHF 140’000 at senior level (ML engineer jobs).
• AI engineers are lower, CHF 110’000 at mid level and CHF 130’000 at senior level. The title is used most by consultancies and IT service firms (16 of 36 listings) and by startups (7), and rarely by global tech companies (3), whose engineering ads mostly say software engineer (27) or ML engineer (7) (AI engineer jobs).
• Data scientist is a rare title in this market: only two live listings carry it, too few for a median. On levels.fyi, data scientists in Zürich report a median total compensation of CHF 116’612 (39 reports).

Pay by type of employer

Employers were grouped by hand: global tech companies (Google, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, IBM Research, Huawei and others), frontier AI labs (Google DeepMind, Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral AI, Isomorphic Labs), banks and other financial firms, pharma, consulting and IT services, established industrial companies, and startups and scale-ups. Universities and research institutes follow the site's sector field.

The order is the expected one: frontier labs and global tech companies first (CHF 160’000 for senior roles), then pharma, industry, consulting and finance (CHF 130’000–155’000), then startups and scale-ups (CHF 125’000 senior, CHF 90’000 mid). The same split shows between companies tagged AI-native on SwissAIJob, mostly young firms, and the rest of industry: CHF 120’000 against CHF 140’000 across levels.

Read this chart with the caveat above in mind: the model was told that big tech pays more than startups, so the ranking is partly an input, not a finding. Published pay, below, suggests the real gap at the top is larger.

Pay by city

Median estimates at companies, live listings on 1 November 2026; an ad for several cities counts in each. The junior medians, where a city has 3 or more, are CHF 92’500 in Zürich and CHF 105’000 in Geneva.

At the same level the cities are close: mid-level roles sit at CHF 110’000–115’000 everywhere. The gaps across all levels come from who hires where. In Zürich, global tech companies and frontier labs post a third of the listings and 71% of roles are senior or above. In Geneva, consultancies and IT service firms post 56% and startups 32%. Lausanne's listings come two-thirds from startups and scale-ups, Basel's half from pharma.

How the estimates compare with published pay

What employers publish

Since mid-April 2026, 54 of the 1,886 listings that went live on SwissAIJob stated a salary in Swiss francs (2.9%), and on 1 November it was 5 of 530 (0.9%). Two employers account for most of them: Novartis (21 ads) and Microsoft (17), followed by Swiss Re (6). Another 67 ads (3.6%) gave a pay range for another country, usually the United States, but none for Switzerland; 40 of them were Google ads. University ads usually point to the institution's pay regulations or to SNSF rates instead of a figure. The count comes from a search of the full ad text for amounts in CHF next to words such as salary, Lohn or compensation, checked by hand; amounts for benefits such as training budgets were removed.

The published bands are wide. At Novartis the top of the band was 86% above the bottom in every ad, and Microsoft's Senior Software Engineer band spans almost CHF 100’000. A band that wide says more about the grade than about the offer.

Until November 2026, our clean-up of the ad text dropped the published figure in 29 of these ads, so their estimates came from the benchmarks alone. That makes them a fair test: for 23 of the 29, the midpoint of the estimate fell inside the published band, but on the low side, with the median estimate 14% below the middle of the band. All 29 come from four large employers, so this is a sanity check, not a calibration. The model now also reads the pay stated in the original ad, and a listing that states its pay shows the employer's own figures, marked "stated" instead of "est.".

Big tech: treat the estimates as a floor

Self-reported data points the same way. On levels.fyi, software engineers in Zürich report a median total compensation of CHF 149’108 (420 reports, 25th to 75th percentile CHF 116’012–231’502). For Google in the Zürich area the median is CHF 291’358, of which about CHF 198’800 is base salary and the rest stock and bonus. The median SwissAIJob estimate for Google's 17 live listings outside internships is CHF 140’000. Levels.fyi figures are reported by users and include equity, so they don't compare one to one, but at global tech companies the estimates here are best read as a conservative base salary.

PhD and postdoc pay follows fixed scales

At ETH Zürich and EPFL, doctoral students are employed and paid a salary on a fixed scale; other universities and the SNSF set their own scales.

• ETH Zürich pays doctoral students on five fixed rates. The standard rate is CHF 53’500 in the first year, CHF 54’700 in the second and CHF 56’100 from the third; rate 5 is CHF 73’100, CHF 78’300 and CHF 83’500. Postdocs earn CHF 92’500, CHF 97’200 and CHF 101’900 in their first three years (rates as of 1 January 2026, at 100%) (ETH Zürich, 2026).
• EPFL pays doctoral assistants CHF 55’225 in the first year, rising by CHF 1’000 a year to CHF 58’225, and postdocs CHF 88’000 rising to CHF 92’500 in the fourth year, 13th salary included (EPFL, 2026).
• SNSF-funded positions: the Swiss National Science Foundation raised the floor for doctoral students from CHF 47’040 to CHF 50’000 from 1 January 2026, with an upper limit of CHF 55’000; postdoc salaries it funds go up to CHF 110’000 (SNSF, 2024a; SNSF, 2024b). Cantonal universities set their own scales, and some of their ads, such as a University of Basel postdoc ad, simply refer to SNSF rates.

The site's own estimate for these roles is coarser: CHF 50’000 as the lower bound for nearly every PhD position (24 of 25) and CHF 80’000 for most postdocs (23 of 26), so for academic roles the official scales above are the better guide. The scales are for a 100% position. Most doctoral ads on the site are for 100%, but the two University of Zürich ads live on 1 November are for 80%, which lowers the pay by the same share. Current openings: PhD positions, postdocs and all academic roles.

A postdoc at ETH earns about what the median junior industry role is estimated at. The gap opens later: the senior industry median is CHF 140’000, and the ETH postdoc scale stops rising after the third year.

Internships

On 1 November, 108 internships were live. Their median estimate is CHF 35’000 a year, about CHF 2’900 a month, and 73 of them carry the same estimate, CHF 25’000–45’000. The exceptions are PhD research internships at big tech: ten at Google, Meta, Nvidia and Apple are estimated from CHF 80’000 a year. The two internship ads that stated pay this year offered CHF 1’500–3’000 a month (Medtronic, Lausanne) and CHF 4’000 a month (Kaiko.AI, Zürich).

What research says about the AI pay premium

None of the studies below covers Switzerland, but they point the same way.

• In US online job ads from 2010 to 2019, postings that asked for AI skills offered 11% more pay than other postings at the same firm and 5% more than others with the same job title (Alekseeva et al., 2021).
• On a large US online freelancing platform (2014–2022, 962 skills), AI skills raised hourly wages by 21% on average, mainly because they combine well with other valuable skills (Stephany & Teutloff, 2024).
• In a survey of 46,213 workers in the EU, Norway and Iceland, people who write programs using AI methods earned about 11–21% more per hour than non-programmers with similar education, and 4–8% more than programmers who don't use AI, depending on the controls (Pouliakas et al., 2025).
• AI hiring grew fastest in establishments whose tasks were most exposed to AI, which cut hiring for other roles, but the authors found no effect on employment or wage growth across whole occupations or industries up to 2018 (Acemoglu et al., 2022).

Measured against similar jobs or workers, the premium for AI skills comes out at roughly 5–20%. The differences in this post are larger, because the employer and the level matter more than the skill itself.

Pay transparency: Switzerland and the EU

Switzerland has no rule that job ads must state pay, and Swiss law sets no duty to tell applicants a salary range before they are hired (Homburger, n.d.). What the Gender Equality Act does require since 1 July 2020 is that employers with 100 or more staff run an equal-pay analysis every four years and have it checked externally (Federal Office of Justice, 2026). A motion asking the federal administration and federally owned companies to state the expected salary or range in their own job ads (Motion 22.4443) was opposed by the Federal Council and rejected by the National Council in September 2023, by 106 votes to 82 (inside-it.ch, 2023).

The EU's Pay Transparency Directive (EU) 2023/970 gives job applicants a right to information on pay before they are employed and bans questions about their pay history; member states had until 7 June 2026 to write it into national law (European Commission, n.d.). It does not apply directly to Swiss employers (Homburger, n.d.), but Swiss companies must follow it for staff they employ in EU member states (EY, 2026). For a job in Switzerland, the salary is still something you usually learn in the interview.

Gross is not net: tax by canton

The same gross salary leaves very different amounts depending on where you live. For a single person with a gross salary of CHF 150’000 in 2024, cantonal, municipal and church tax in the cantonal capitals came to (BAK Economics, 2025, based on figures of the Federal Tax Administration):

That is a difference of about CHF 21’600 a year between Zug and Geneva on the same pay. Federal income tax comes on top and is the same in every canton, as are social security contributions. The Federal Tax Administration's tax calculator works out the full amount for any municipality and household.

Using these numbers

Use the level medians as a starting point, then adjust for the employer: at global tech companies and AI labs, expect more than the estimates here, and ask for the full grade band when an employer has one. For academic roles, the institution's scale is the number. The salaries page updates every day, and the free weekly job alert sends new AI roles that match your level and role.

Frequently asked questions

What does an AI engineer earn in Zürich?

SwissAIJob estimates a median of CHF 110’000 a year for mid-level AI engineer roles in Zürich and CHF 135’000 for senior ones (23 live listings on 1 November 2026). Machine learning engineers in Zürich are estimated at CHF 110’000 at mid level and CHF 142’500 at senior level. At global tech companies pay is higher: Microsoft published CHF 146’200–245’900 base salary for a senior software engineer in Zürich in 2026.

What does a machine learning engineer earn in Switzerland?

Across Switzerland, ML and computer vision engineer roles are estimated at a median of CHF 115’000 a year at mid level and CHF 140’000 at senior level, from 36 live listings on 1 November 2026. Most of these roles are in Zürich. Self-reported data on levels.fyi puts the median total compensation of software engineers in Zürich at CHF 149’108, including stock and bonus.

How much do PhD students earn at ETH Zürich and EPFL?

At ETH Zürich, doctoral students earn between CHF 53’500 (standard rate, first year) and CHF 83’500 (rate 5, from the third year) a year at 100% in 2026. At EPFL, doctoral assistants earn CHF 55’225 in the first year, rising to CHF 58’225. Positions funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation pay at least CHF 50’000 since January 2026.

Do Swiss employers have to publish salaries in job ads?

No. Swiss law has no pay-transparency rule for job ads, and the EU Pay Transparency Directive does not apply to jobs in Switzerland. On SwissAIJob, only 5 of 530 live AI listings on 1 November 2026 stated a salary in Swiss francs.

What do postdocs earn in Switzerland?

Postdocs at ETH Zürich earn CHF 92’500 in the first year, rising to CHF 101’900 in the third year, and at EPFL CHF 88’000 rising to CHF 92’500 (2026, at 100%). Salaries funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation go up to CHF 110’000. That is close to the median estimate for a junior industry AI role, CHF 92’500.

References

Research

• Acemoglu, D., Autor, D., Hazell, J., & Restrepo, P. (2022). Artificial intelligence and jobs: Evidence from online vacancies. Journal of Labor Economics, 40(S1), S293–S340. https://doi.org/10.1086/718327
• Alekseeva, L., Azar, J., Giné, M., Samila, S., & Taska, B. (2021). The demand for AI skills in the labor market. Labour Economics, 71, 102002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102002
• Pouliakas, K., Santangelo, G., & Dupire, P. (2025). Are artificial intelligence (AI) skills a reward or a gamble? Deconstructing the AI wage premium in Europe (IZA Discussion Paper No. 17607). IZA Institute of Labor Economics. https://docs.iza.org/dp17607.pdf
• Stephany, F., & Teutloff, O. (2024). What is the price of a skill? The value of complementarity. Research Policy, 53(1), 104898. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104898

Official sources and data

• EPFL. (2026). Basic starting salary of doctoral assistants and postdocs. https://www.epfl.ch/campus/services/human-resources/basic-starting-salary-of-doctoral-assistants-and-postdocs
• ETH Zürich. (2026). Salary (salary rates as of 1 January 2026). https://ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/working-teaching-and-research/welcome-center/employment-contract-and-salary/salary.html
• European Commission. (n.d.). EU action for equal pay. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/gender-equality/equal-pay/eu-action-equal-pay_en
• Federal Office of Justice. (2026). Verwirklichung der Lohngleichheit. https://www.bj.admin.ch/de/verwirklichung-der-lohngleichheit
• Federal Statistical Office (FSO). (2025a). In 2024, the gross median wage was CHF 7024 (press release, 25 November 2025). https://www.admin.ch/en/newnsb/CzozNgBTCJOrNyvwsItyp
• Federal Statistical Office (FSO). (2025b). Monatlicher Bruttolohn nach Wirtschaftsabschnitten, Schweiz 2024 (table T1_Sp, Swiss Earnings Structure Survey). https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/36196137/master
• Federal Statistical Office (FSO). (2025c). Monatlicher Bruttolohn nach Ausbildung, beruflicher Stellung und Geschlecht, Schweiz 2024 (table T11, Swiss Earnings Structure Survey). https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/36196131/master
• Federal Statistical Office (FSO). (n.d.). Salarium: statistical salary calculator. https://www.salarium.ch
• Federal Tax Administration (ESTV). (n.d.). Tax calculator. https://swisstaxcalculator.estv.admin.ch/
• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). (2024a, 24 April). Increase in salary bands for project staff. https://snf.ch/en/kIoi8g3mQTtDBX3r/news/increase-in-salary-bands-for-project-staff
• Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). (2024b, 24 July). Salary increase for doctoral students. https://www.snf.ch/en/kHunysxdKHpyUL8s/news/salary-increase-for-doctoral-students
• Swiss Parliament. (2022). Motion 22.4443: Lohntransparenz bei Stelleninseraten. Vorbildfunktion des Bundes und der öffentlichen Betriebe. https://www.parlament.ch/de/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20224443

Other sources

• BAK Economics. (2025). Zürcher Steuerbelastungsmonitor 2025 (for the Finance Directorate of the Canton of Zürich), figure 2-11. https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/themen/steuern-finanzen/kantonsfinanzen/steuerbelastungsmonitor/BAK%20Economics_Z%C3%BCrcher_Steuerbelastungsmonitor_2025.pdf
• EY. (2026, 29 April). Update on Switzerland/France cross-border topic: Immigration, EU pay transparency. https://www.ey.com/en_ch/technical/tax-alerts/update-on-switzerland-france-cross-border-topic-immigration-eu-pay-transparency
• Gross, B., Reichlin, J., & Menegon, G. (n.d.). EU Pay Transparency Directive: What Swiss employers need to know. Homburger. https://homburger.ch/en/insights/eu-pay-transparency-directive
• inside-it.ch. (2023, 20 September). Keine verpflichtende Lohnangaben in Stelleninseraten von Bundesbehörden. https://www.inside-it.ch/keine-verpflichtende-lohnangaben-in-stelleninseraten-von-bundesbehoerden-20230920
• Levels.fyi. (2026). Software engineer salaries in Zürich and Google software engineer salaries in the Greater Zürich Area (self-reported, retrieved 1 November 2026). https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/zurich-che, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/locations/greater-zurich-area