Does CERN pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, CERN employees rate their compensation and benefits as 4.3 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at CERN. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at CERN?

91% of CERN employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated CERN 4.5 out of 5 for work life balance, 4.5 for culture and values and 3.7 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at CERN?

Technical Student (125) , Software Engineer (112) , Fellow (61) , PhD Student (35) , Senior Fellow (24) , Doctoral Student (23) , Research Fellow (23) , Internship (22) , Mechanical Engineer (20) , Junior Fellow (19) , Postdoctoral Fellow (19) , Engineer (18) , Project Associate (18) , Intern (16) , Administrative Student (15)

What are the pros of working at CERN according to real employee reviews?

"Good salary and tons of benefits." ((in 128 reviews)); "Best experience ever Great people" ((in 75 reviews)); "Amazing environment and great colleagues." ((in 60 reviews)); "Good benefits for CERN contracts" ((in 49 reviews)); "Good work life balance and vast interesting domains of activity." ((in 37 reviews))

What are the cons of working at CERN according to real employee reviews?

"Bad management, nothing else fdgdfgdf" ((in 38 reviews)); "No career progression; no teleworking outside of the region" ((in 16 reviews)); "For scientists, almost exclusively temporary contracts and almost no career opportunities inside or outside CERN." ((in 15 reviews)); "Had 5 supervisors, overall)" ((in 13 reviews)); "Incredible nepotism everywhere." ((in 7 reviews))

CERN reviews

4.4

91% would recommend to a friend

(856 total reviews)

Fabiola Gianotti

91% approve of CEO

59% positive business outlook

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Sexual orientation

Disability

Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

CERN has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 856 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The CERN employee rating is 21% above average for employers within the Regierung & öffentliche Verwaltung industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

856 reviews

3.0

Oct 18, 2022

Good salary, ancient technologies when working with the accelerators

Software engineer

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Good salary, a lot of holidays, very flexible,

Cons

No development structure, ancient technologies, you are often given tasks which are not in your field. No real job security, you often get to know if your contract is extended one month before it is supposed to expire

CERN Response

3y

We are sorry to read about your feedback. With a view to improving the experience of future colleagues, we invite you to contact your.experience.matters@cern.ch.

4.0

Oct 13, 2022

Great environment, hard career ladder

Senior it software engineer

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Work with great people for a great mission.

Cons

Not very modern on IT and software engineering side. Career growth hard to achieve, not very clear management strategy.

CERN Response

3y

Thank you for sharing your experience of working at CERN. We wish you success in your future endeavours.

5.0

Oct 10, 2022

Senior Fellow

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

amazing work atmosphere and wonderful colleagues

Cons

big workload at times and can be stressful

Viewing 457 - 459 of 856 Reviews

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Jobs at CERN

Short Term Internship 2026

Genf

View job

Assistant Departmental Safety Officer (EN-RMS-2026-147-GRAE)

Administrative Student Programme 2026-3

Genf

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Early Career Professionals - Technical Field – Spontaneous Applications

Full-Stack Web Developer (SY-EPC-CCS-2026-155-GRAE)

CERN

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Good salary, ancient technologies when working with the accelerators

Great environment, hard career ladder

Senior Fellow

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