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 4.4 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 (111) , Fellow (61) , PhD Student (35) , Senior Fellow (24) , Doctoral Student (23) , Research Fellow (23) , Internship (22) , Junior Fellow (19) , Mechanical Engineer (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 (if you're not Swiss)" ((in 116 reviews)); "Best experience ever Great people" ((in 85 reviews)); "Amazing environment and great colleagues." ((in 56 reviews)); "Good benefits for CERN contracts" ((in 44 reviews)); "Good work life balance and vast interesting domains of activity." ((in 34 reviews))

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

"Bad management, nothing else fdgdfgdf" ((in 38 reviews)); "Slow career progression" ((in 16 reviews)); "Career opportunities are limited, long" ((in 14 reviews)); "Had 5 supervisors, overall)" ((in 14 reviews)); "Incredible nepotism everywhere." ((in 6 reviews))

CERN reviews

Compare reviews

4.4

91% would recommend to a friend

(855 total reviews)

Fabiola Gianotti

91% approve of CEO

59% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

4.5

Culture & values

4.5

Diversity & inclusion

4.4

Work/Life balance

4.3

Compensation and benefits

3.9

Senior management

3.7

Career opportunities

CERN has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 855 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).

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

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Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

Reviews by job title

855 reviews

4.0

Dec 17, 2012

Cutting edge technology on a large scale

Doctoral student

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- sometimes may work on really unique research subjects - great region: mountains, lakea and se not too far - many smart people around . many diiferent contract types - a lot of flexibility

Cons

- a lot depends on your supervisor - the subject may be only related to CERN, thus experience may have no value outside

4.0

Sep 12, 2012

Good choice if you want to be involved in cutting-edge research

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

You get to be a part of effort that discovers the Higgs Boson, how cool is that! You get to understand the use the most cutting-edge detectors in the world for analyzing subatomic particle events

Cons

A big part of your analysis of subatomic particle events is doing data analysis on large dataset. If you don't enjoy working with data and coding all day, then CERN is not the right choice

5.0

Aug 23, 2012

Most pleasant experience ever.

Fellow

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Salary, people, society, new experiences.

Cons

I really do not know.

Viewing 841 - 843 of 855 Reviews

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Jobs at CERN

Library Cataloguer (OSI-SIS-AL-2026-146-GRAE)

Junior Marketing Communications Officer (IPT-KT-MC-2026-148-GRAE)

Talent Acquisition Officer (HR-TA-2026-57-GRAE)

Short Term Internship 2026

Schweiz

View job

Junior Officer for Host State Relations (SR-SE-HSR-2026-154-GRAE)

CERN

CERN reviews

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Ratings by demographic groups

Reviews by job title

Cutting edge technology on a large scale

Good choice if you want to be involved in cutting-edge research

Most pleasant experience ever.

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