How are labour markets shaping research and innovation career opportunities? This chapter analyses key features of the people working at the heart of research and innovation systems. It examines trends in R&D personnel and employment in science-, technology- and ICT-related occupations across countries and how these workforces are evolving over time. It also presents the latest available comparative evidence on the employment outcomes and working conditions of doctorate holders. Together, these indicators offer insights into how R&I systems within and across countries employ and reward highly qualified talent.
Research and Innovation Careers Observatory 2026
Key Indicators on Talent, Mobility and Working Conditions
Abstract
Expanding opportunities for research and innovation careers
Across the OECD, R&D personnel accounted for almost 1.6% of employment in 2024, up from around 1.3% in 2015. People are also the largest component of investment in R&D. The ensemble of R&D performing organisations in most OECD countries devoted more than half of their R&D expenditure to compensating their direct R&D workforce, without counting payments for external consultants or technical staff within goods and service providers. Researchers (the individuals responsible for creating new knowledge and develop new applications) account for the largest share of R&D personnel in most countries, more than technical and broader support roles. Across the OECD, businesses are their principal employer, highlighting the importance of business demand in shaping R&D career opportunities.
The broader workforce of science, technology, engineering and mathematics professionals has expanded even more rapidly. In 2024, science and engineering professionals represented 3.7% of employment across the OECD, while ICT professionals accounted for a further 3.1%. Growth has been particularly rapid in ICT occupations, whose share of employment increased from 1.8% in 2015 to 3.1% in 2024, underlining the increasing integration of digital technologies across economies. Despite this overall growth, important challenges remain. Across countries with available data, fewer women than men are working in STEM professions, with particularly low participation in ICT, the fastest-growing part of the professional STEM workforce.
For individuals, doctoral education generally delivers strong labour market outcomes. Employment rates for doctorate holders exceed those of master's degree holders in most countries and are typically above 90%. Doctorate holders also earn more on average: the OECD-wide earnings premium relative to master's degree holders is 25%, although the size of this advantage differs markedly across countries. At the same time, recent doctorate graduates are often more likely to be employed on temporary contracts, reflecting the continuing prevalence of fixed-term and project-based positions in research-intensive sectors.
Overall, the evidence points to expanding career opportunities for highly skilled workers in R&I systems but also highlights significant differences across countries in the scale of R&I employment, career conditions and the rewards associated with advanced research training. Ensuring that investments in skills and education translate into attractive, sustainable careers remains a central challenge for strengthening R&I systems.
Research and innovation (R&I) intensive sectors, industries, and organisations can achieve their objectives only if they have access to a stable, and in many cases growing, supply of skilled and talented individuals willing to pursue R&I careers. At the same time, individuals considering R&I careers are likely to be attracted to environments that offer opportunities for professional development, intellectual fulfilment, and secure and rewarding employment. The strength and health of R&I ecosystems depend on how well these macro-level and individual ambitions align. Where they align well, organisations can access the skills needed to support their research, development and innovative activities, while individuals find rewarding careers worth their commitment. Where there is poor alignment, skills may be underutilised, reducing the returns on investments made by individuals and society in developing R&I competencies.
This chapter follows the previous chapter’s examination of R&I talent development by examining the labour market for R&I personnel to build a combined view of labour market demand and supply for R&I talent, This is not only relevant for comparing R&I systems over time, illustrating for instance the growth in R&D and STEM employment, but also provides insights on R&I career pathways and potential prospects for different cohorts and population groups, Training for and establishing a career in R&I represents a substantial investment of time, effort, and resources by individuals, employing organisations and, often, governments. Yet, because many aspects of R&I career trajectories and outcomes remain poorly measured and understood, such investments are often made under considerable uncertainty. For example, academic researchers often start their careers with a long period of advanced education and undergo years of precarity post-graduation before becoming established in a stable career path (OECD, 2021[1]). Robust and reliable information on career pathways and employment outcomes is therefore critical to informed decision-making by individuals, institutions, and policymakers.
This chapter’s analysis draws on multiple sources of evidence consolidated through ReICO. It first presents internationally comparable measures of R&D personnel and the professional science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce, exploring the relative size of these workforce segments across countries, their characteristics and the connections between them. Box 3.1 summarises the definitions of these workforce categories and the distinctions between them. The second part of the chapter adopts the perspective of individuals investing in doctoral education, one of the pathways into research careers. Drawing on longstanding international efforts to track the careers of doctorate holders beyond graduation, it provides a comparative overview of their employment outcomes, including the sectors in which they work and the conditions under which they are employed, benchmarked against master's degree holders. Although limited in scope and granularity, these indicators offer valuable insights into the labour market returns to doctoral training and the extent to which countries reward the substantial additional investment required to obtain a doctorate.
The main perspectives taken within national and international statistical infrastructures to identify and collate data on those working in R&I are the segment of the workforce whose function is performing R&D (i.e. R&D personnel, whose numbers and features are typically reported in surveys by the organisations they work for) and those whose occupation is likely to entail engagement in R&D and/or innovation activity (often reported at the level of individuals in labour force surveys or census).
As described in Chapter 1, international statistics group those whose function involves R&D into three categories – researchers (encompassing not only those engaged in basic or applied research but R&D managers, engineers, scientists, programmers and designers), technicians and equivalent staff, and other supporting staff. The limitation of this perspective is that it does not cover everyone with the potential to contribute to R&D, and misses out on those contributing to innovation beyond R&D. From a generic occupational classification perspective, the categories of science and engineering (ISCO 21) and ICT (ISCO 25) professionals (hereafter, the “professional STEM workforce” or “STEM professionals”) are afforded particular importance in national and international data collections such as labour force surveys, as professions with high levels of scientific and technical expertise contributing to economies’ capacity to develop, adopt, apply and diffuse new knowledge and innovations (OECD, 2026[2]). The limitation in this case is the lack of data on whether they actually work on R&D or innovation.
Beyond R&D personnel and the professional STEM workforces lies a wider, less standardised group of innovation workers who do not necessarily perform R&D or work as STEM professionals, but contribute to developmental, financial and commercial activities that are intended to result in innovation, for example, those engaged in design and other creative work, marketing, intellectual property management, training, software development and innovation management. Methodologies for defining and measuring this group within national and international statistical activities are far less advanced (OECD/Eurostat, 2018[3]).
As Figure 3.1 shows, these workforce groups overlap but do not encompass each other. The respective sizes of the groups and the extent to which they overlap also cannot be fully ascertained from existing statistical data.
Source: Authors’ elaboration
On average across the OECD, R&D personnel made up 1.6% of employment
R&D personnel are one of the core measures of R&D inputs (OECD, 2015[4]) and indicate the stock of accumulated capability and expertise being effectively employed to conduct and support R&D within countries. At the national level, the share of R&D personnel within total employment provides a human-focused signal of the R&D intensity of the economy, as well as the scale and depth of its labour market for R&D activities, although it falls short of providing a complete picture of total resources dedicated to R&D and innovation.
According to the established practice laid out in the Frascati Manual, R&D personnel are reported in international statistical data collections both as headcounts and in full-time equivalents. This distinction is important because a great deal of R&D is performed on a part-time basis alongside teaching (for example, in higher education institutions) or other tasks, such as general management, production and commercialisation activities, to name a few. Full-time equivalents adjust for proportions of time R&D personnel spend outside R&D work or on other tasks and are therefore used to compare not only across countries but with other measures of R&D input and output within countries.
Figure 3.2 shows the high dispersion in R&D personnel intensity across countries and economies covered in ReICO. Among countries with data available, only five countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Korea) report R&D personnel intensities above 2% of employment. At the other end of the distribution, four countries (Chile, Cyprus, Romania and South Africa) report intensities lower than 0.5%. Across the OECD area, full-time equivalent R&D personnel accounted, on an unweighted average basis, for almost 1.6% of employed persons in 2024 (OECD, 2026[5]), while across the EU, the average (unweighted) value was only slightly lower at just under 1.4%.
Percentage of employment
Note: 1. Reference year differs: 2022 for Chile and the United States, and 2023 for Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, South Africa and Switzerland.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI), June 2026.
Most R&D personnel are working as researchers
Equally important to the intensity of R&D personnel within employment are the types of functions in which these personnel are engaged. As discussed in Box 3.1, R&D personnel comprise a range of roles, which are grouped for statistical purposes into the functional categories of researchers (a category which as previously explained in Box 3.1 not only includes scientific researchers but also engineers and managers involved in the oversight of R&D projects); technicians and other equivalent staff involved in the implementation of R&D; and other support staff. Looking at differences in the balance of these roles provides insights into the nature of R&D activities across countries and sectors and the organisation or division of labour within them.
Figure 3.3 shows that the breakdown of personnel by function varies substantially across countries included in the ReICO database. Reflecting the concept’s broad definition, researchers make up the majority of R&D personnel in most countries with available data, with shares exceeding three-quarters of all personnel in seven countries (Finland, Japan, Korea, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Sweden and Türkiye). Exact definitions used across countries may have some bearing on the comparability of these figures. Business respondents, for example, often find it difficult to identify their R&D engineering workforce as researchers because they associate that concept to the conduct of basic research and not necessarily new product or process development. Furthermore, not all countries can distinguish between technicians and other supporting staff, but among those that can, shares of technicians tend to be substantially higher than shares of supporting staff. Tracing other supporting stuff can be challenging because this may correspond to outsourced services such as facility management, impeding the tracking of personnel data beyond the organisations that report on their R&D. The highest shares of technicians among R&D personnel are reported in Croatia (35%), Iceland (34%) and Czechia (30%), while the smallest share of technicians can be found in Japan (8%).
Percentage of R&D personnel, full-time equivalent
Note: Fifteen countries cannot disaggregate between technicians and equivalent staff and other supporting staff. 1. Reference year 2022.
Source: OECD, Research and Development Statistics, July 2026.
The business sector is the main employer of researchers, but with major differences across countries
The business enterprise sector is the single largest employer of researchers in the majority of countries covered in ReICO. Shares of researchers in the business sector are highest in Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, where seven in ten researchers or more work in business enterprises (Figure 3.4). There is, however, considerable variation across countries: at the other end of the distribution, in several countries including Costa Rica, Croatia, Lithuania and Luxembourg, fewer than one third of researchers are employed in business, and the higher education sector instead employs the largest share. On a weighted average basis, the business sector accounted for close to two-thirds of all researchers (in full-time equivalents) across the entire OECD area in 2024. This substantial share principally reflects the share of the business sector in terms of total R&D expenditure. It also highlights the broad and diverse range of roles included in the category of “researcher” as defined in international statistics (see Box 3.1).
Percentage of researchers, full-time equivalent
Note: Estimates for OECD and EU refer to weighted averages for the respective area. 1. Reference year differs: 2022 for Chile, and 2023 for Argentina, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, OECD, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI) and Science, Technology and Innovation Scoreboard, June 2026.
Higher education is the second-largest employer of researchers in almost all countries, and, as mentioned, in a substantial group of mainly smaller and lower R&D-intensity economies it is the dominant one. The government sector plays a comparatively modest role as an employer in most R&D systems, though it remains sizeable in several economies, employing at least 20% of researchers in Argentina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Luxembourg and Romania. Finally, as Figure 3.4 shows, the private non-profit sector employs only a marginal share of researchers in virtually all countries, exceeding 10% of employment only in Cyprus.
The R&D workforce has been rapidly expanding
Most countries have witnessed a steady increase in their R&D workforce, which continued over recent years both in absolute terms and as a proportion of total employment. Across the entire OECD area, R&D personnel as a percentage of all persons employed increased from an average of 1.3% in 2015 to 1.6% in 2024, a relatively short period for such a change (OECD, 2026[2]). A similar pattern holds for researchers with increases recorded across most OECD countries.
Over time, several countries have narrowed gaps with those exhibiting the highest shares of R&D personnel over total employment, as shown in Figure 3.5. China, Estonia, Portugal and Türkiye show the largest increases in R&D personnel intensity over the period, with shares increasing by more than half a percentage point in each case, followed by Belgium, Korea and Poland. Only two countries recorded minor decreases in R&D personnel shares over the same period: Ireland and Luxembourg. Costa Rica, Ireland and New Zealand also recorded minor reductions in their workforce share of researchers between 2015 and 2024.
Percentage of employment
Notes: Estimates for OECD and EU refer to weighted averages for the respective area. For Costa Rica and the United States, data is only available on researchers. 1. Latest reference year differs: 2022 for Chile and OECD (R&D personnel), and 2023 for Canada, New Zealand, OECD (researchers), South Africa, Switzerland and the United States (researchers). 2. Break in series.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Main Science and Technology Indicators (MSTI) and Science, Technology and Innovation Scoreboard, June 2026.
The underlying drivers of these changes are likely to vary across countries and R&D-performing sectors, reflecting a combination of structural, economic and policy factors. While changes in R&D investment may help explain some of these patterns, the relative importance of different influences is likely to differ across national contexts. Further analysis could help to further unpack these patterns. Notably, the R&D-specific expansion is occurring alongside a broader growth of the science, engineering and technology workforce, as discussed later in this chapter.
A considerable share of global expenditure on R&D goes on labour costs
An important complementary perspective to the scale and composition of R&D workforces across countries is the financial resources devoted to supporting this workforce. Globally, an estimated USD 3.8 trillion (in purchasing power parity terms) was spent on R&D in 2024, with an estimated USD 2.3 trillion of that coming from OECD economies alone (OECD, 2026[6]). A considerable proportion of this expenditure goes towards labour costs for internal R&D personnel. In most countries with available data, these costs account for at least 50% of gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) although there is substantial variation (OECD, 2026[7]). Figure 3.6 highlights the central role of personnel costs in R&D activities across countries. In most economies, labour costs for internal R&D personnel account for between one-half to two-thirds of GERD, underlining the point that countries’ investment in R&D is, to a large extent, investment in people.
Percentage of gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD)
Notes: 1. OECD estimate excluding private non-profit sector. 2. Reference year 2022.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Research and Development Statistics, June 2026.
The observed variation across countries in shares of R&D expenditure on internal R&D personnel likely reflects differences in sectoral R&D structures, seniority profiles of R&D workers, wage levels, and the relative importance of capital-intensive forms of R&D within countries. Countries with lower labour cost shares may have a greater prevalence of R&D activities requiring specialised equipment, facilities or other non-labour inputs, or rely more heavily on external contracting and offshoring. By contrast, a higher labour cost share could indicate a stronger concentration of R&D expenditure in areas and industries like software development, design and scientific and technical services.
There are major differences in R&D spending per R&D personnel across countries and sectors
The share of labour costs in GERD provides an indication of the importance of personnel within R&D activities and reflects the extent to which R&D expenditure is devoted to internal personnel rather than external human resources, equipment, buildings, or other inputs. However, labour cost shares may reflect the size of the R&D workforce or compensation levels to different degrees - two countries with similar shares of GERD devoted to labour costs may be spending it in very different ways. For this reason, unit labour costs, measured as labour costs for internal R&D personnel per full-time equivalent (FTE) R&D personnel, provide a more illuminating view of the average level of resources available per individual worker and facilitate clearer comparisons across countries.
Figure 3.7 shows considerable differences in unit expenditure for internal R&D personnel across countries and research-performing sectors with available data, which take account of cost-of-living differences across countries by applying purchasing power parities (PPPs) and price changes across years. Within countries, the business sector in general shows the highest levels of unit expenditure, surpassing the higher education sector in 34 out of 37 countries with available data, and that of the government sector in 26 out of 36 countries with available data. Remuneration for R&D personnel may include where available stock-based compensation, which some countries separately itemise in their national publications. In the business sector, Israel, Switzerland and the United States spent the most per FTE R&D personnel, over USD 160 000, with the United States showing the highest by a substantial margin, reaching USD 206 219 in 2023. Within the ReICO database, China has the lowest levels of unit expenditure for business R&D personnel (USD 38 636 per FTE personnel) followed by Chile (USD 51 116) and Lithuania (USD 55 875).
USD PPP per full-time equivalent internal R&D personnel (2020 prices)
Note: For Austria, Canada, Israel, Sweden and the United Kingdom, data is missing in one or more sectors. 1. OECD estimate for data on government sector. 2. Reference year differs: 2022 for Australia (government and higher education), Chile, Croatia (government) and Israel (higher education).
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database, June 2026.
The highest levels of R&D costs per personnel in the higher education sector are found in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, while for the government sector Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland exhibit the highest R&D labour costs per personnel.
Because the indicators in Figure 3.7 are computed based on labour costs, they provide a strong signal of differences across countries and sectors in direct spending on remuneration and other costs such as taxes, which can be directly or indirectly associated to benefits (e.g. pensions, social contributions, health insurance and other ancillary benefits, such as stock options, which in some cases can be quite significant) for R&D personnel. Getting a clear picture of remuneration and benefits at the individual level requires alternative approaches, such as surveys of R&I or STEM personnel. International comparisons of unit R&D labour costs are however useful indicators of potential incentives to move across sectors and borders.
Comparing sectors across the OECD, the business sector spent USD 92 106 per R&D personnel on average, compared to USD 78 613 in the government sector and USD 64 313 in the higher education sector. In Bulgaria, Japan, New Zealand and Romania, expenditure per person in R&D in higher education is below 40% of the level in the business sector. As mentioned, these indicators can provide a picture of potential incentives to move across sectors. However, such mobility may be constrained by several supply and demand factors, including skill mismatches. Indeed, these sectoral differences partly reflect disciplinary composition, with businesses more likely to concentrate R&D personnel within fields with generally higher prevailing salaries, such as engineering, computing and life sciences, while higher education R&D spans all fields of research.
Differences in expenditure per R&D person also reflect variation in the occupational composition of the R&D workforce across sectors. For example, some R&D-performing organisations within business sectors employ large numbers of specialised engineers, software developers, data scientists, project managers and other highly qualified professionals whose skills command relatively high salaries and benefits. Conversely, doctoral candidates, who as trainee researchers receive relatively low salaries and stipends, are also often included in counts of R&D personnel in the higher education sector.
Science, engineering and ICT professionals together make up a considerably higher share of employment than R&D personnel
Analysis of R&D personnel totals, composition and trends provides only a partial view of the R&I workforce (Figure 3.8). Occupation-based measures of the professional STEM workforce offer a complementary perspective, broadening the focus to the wider pool of scientific and technical talent available within R&I systems. This different and complementary view encompasses a substantially larger workforce than that captured by R&D personnel statistics alone but is still likely to exclude many other occupations with individuals contributing to R&I, e.g. individuals with managerial, teaching or design occupations.
In 2024, on average across OECD countries, science and engineering professionals (ISCO 21) accounted for 3.7% of total employment and ICT professionals (ISCO 25) for a further 3.1% (Figure 3.8). Employment shares of the professional STEM workforce in OECD countries and other economies covered in the ReICO database on display in this figure are well above the corresponding shares of R&D personnel, with many in STEM professions potentially contributing to innovation through activities such as technology development, implementation, production, technical services and knowledge diffusion, rather than through formal R&D (OECD, 2026[5]).
Percentage of employed population aged 25-64
Notes: Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Break in series.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
Figure 3.8 shows (combining Panels A and B) four countries (Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden), where the professional STEM workforce now surpasses 10% of employment. In these countries, the share of ICT professionals is slightly bigger than that of science and engineering professionals. However, in most countries, the proportion of professionals in science and engineering is higher than that of professionals in ICT (e.g. Denmark, France and Germany). Among the countries covered by ReICO, the lowest shares of professional STEM workforce are found in Brazil and Mexico, each with shares under 1.5% of science and engineering and less than 1% of employees working in ICT.
Both occupational groups have expanded in nearly all countries with available data, albeit at different paces. While the share of science and engineering professionals rose comparatively modestly across the OECD area between 2015 and 2024, from about 3.2% to 3.7% of employment, ICT professionals grew far faster over the same period from roughly 1.8% of employment in 2015 to 3.1% in 2024, on average across the OECD. Growth in ICT occupations was also more uniformly distributed across countries, with increases visible in all country in Figure 3.8 (Panel B), whereas in science and engineering (Panel A) Bulgaria and the United Kingdom recorded flat or slightly declining shares.
Taken together, STEM professional groups have expanded faster than R&D personnel between 2015 and 2024 and particularly so for ICT professionals. This highlights the broader diffusion of digital technologies across economies. It also points to increasingly diverse career pathways for individuals with advanced technical skills, many of whom contribute to innovation through technology development, implementation, data-intensive activities and other knowledge-intensive functions outside formal R&D.
R&D personnel and STEM workforce shares are positively related
Figure 3.9 shows a positive correlation across countries covered in ReICO between R&D personnel as a share of employment and the combined share of STEM professionals, for countries with data on both measures. Countries with larger shares of employment in professional STEM occupations tend to have larger shares of their employees engaged in R&D, and vice versa. While several countries, including Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, combine relatively high values on both measures, others, such as Cyprus, Lithuania, Malta, and Luxembourg, have among the highest shares of employment in STEM professions but below average shares of R&D personnel. Austria and Belgium are among the few countries that combine relatively high R&D personnel intensity with unexceptional shares of STEM employment.
Note: 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Croatia, 2022 for Chile and the United States, and 2023 for Finland, Iceland, the Slovak Republic, Spain and Switzerland.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Main Science and Technology Indicators (R&D personnel) and multiple data sources (science, engineering and ICT occupations), June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
Figure 3.9 highlights that having a large pool of professional STEM workers within a given country does not translate automatically into heightened R&D activity and vice-versa. The composition of a country's industrial and service structure mediates the relationship. Different patterns can arise depending on the industrial structure of national economies and the extent to which they give rise to demand for R&D-intensive roles or other types of scientific or technological activities. Data from job advertisements can potentially shed light on how demand for different types of research, ICT and technician occupations is distributed within, and evolving, across countries, as discussed in Chapter 5.
Women are present in smaller numbers than men in STEM professions in most countries
Even as STEM professionals become a more important share of employment, their sex composition remains markedly unbalanced. Currently available data within ReICO for these indicators is limited to data sourced from Eurostat corresponding to members and associates of the European Statistical System (ESS). Figure 3.10 illustrates the extent to which percentages of women remain lower than overall percentages employed in both science and engineering occupations (Panel A) and ICT occupations (Panel B), in almost every ESS country.
Percentage of same sex group
Notes: Data currently available only for members and associated countries of the European Statistical System (ESS). 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Malta, 2022 for Finland and Luxembourg, and 2023 for Türkiye.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on EU Labour Force Survey, June 2026.
The participation gap is far wider for ICT professionals than for those working in science and engineering, a concerning pattern given that ICT is the fastest-growing component of the STEM workforce. The magnitude of the gap varies substantially according to the country and occupation category. Türkiye, for example, shows almost identical shares for women and men in both sets of occupations, while the Netherlands combines an above-average overall share of employment in ICT occupations with one of the largest gaps between men and women. Overall, these patterns suggest that challenges remain in attracting, retaining and advancing talent across the full spectrum of scientific and technical careers.
The final section of this chapter shifts to a qualification-based perspective, examining the career outcomes of doctorate holders and the roles they play within science, research and innovation systems.
Doctorate holders constitute an important segment of the R&I workforce from the perspective of governments and many R&D-performing organisations, as the group of the population formally trained to conduct original research. Available data on R&D personnel by qualification level for 25 countries highlight the relative prevalence of doctoral qualifications across R&D systems and sectors. As Figure 3.11 shows, overall shares of R&D personnel with a doctorate range from 8.5% in China to 54.5% in South Africa. While shares of personnel with a doctorate are notably smaller in the business sector, compared to higher education, nevertheless, they still tend to reach multiples of the share within the working-age population. For example, in Switzerland, where doctorate holders make up 3% of the working-age population (see Chapter 2), 15.4% of personnel working in business R&D hold a doctorate. In several other countries with available data (Austria, Belgium, Greece, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden), the share of all R&D personnel in the business sector with a doctorate exceeds 10% (Figure 3.11).
Percentage of all R&D personnel in the sector
Notes: For Ireland, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, data is missing in some sectors. 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Belgium, China and Ireland, and 2022 for Chile and Poland.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on Research and Development Statistics, June 2026.
As discussed in Chapter 2, doctoral training represents a substantial additional investment over master’s level education for individuals, and, often, for governments. Across OECD countries, the average age of graduation from doctoral programmes is 35 - a later transition from the training phase of their careers to the labour market than workers in most other professions. Recognising the importance of this highly skilled group, the OECD has long sought to develop internationally comparable evidence on their careers and working conditions, establishing, together with Eurostat and UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH) project in the mid-2000s, to address the lack of comparable information on the employment, mobility and career paths of doctorate holders (Auriol, Misu and Freeman, 2013[8]).
Tracking doctorate holders and establishing comparability across countries on indicators relating to their careers comes with several challenges. Doctorate holders make up a relatively small share of the population, making it difficult to obtain sufficiently large and representative samples for statistical analysis. Tracking career trajectories over time is also complex, particularly given the high levels of international mobility among doctorate holders and the growing prevalence of non-linear career paths spanning academia, government and industry. However, as the number of doctorate holders expand and statistical capacity improves, an increasing number of countries are able to identify this group separately and report in greater detail on their profiles and labour market outcomes. This section draws on the most recent data available to present a comparative view of how doctorate holders fare in the labour market.
Employment premia for doctorate holders vary across countries
Figure 3.12 shows that employment rates among the full population of doctorate holders exceed those observed for master’s degree holders in nearly all countries. Employment rates for doctorate holders are generally above 90% and exceed 95% in seven countries. Overall, on average, Figure 3.12 indicates a modest employment advantage for doctorate holders relative to those holding a master’s degree, suggesting that acquiring a doctoral level qualification in general provides some advantage in the labour market, compared to master’s degree holders.
Both doctorate and master’s degree holders experience substantially higher employment rates than the general population (OECD, 2025[9]), underlining the overall strong labour market returns associated with tertiary education at advanced levels. Despite the overall positive picture, important differences are evident across countries covered in ReICO, even if the small sample sizes warrant some caution in interpretation. In some countries, such as Finland, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain and Sweden, the employment rate gap between doctorate and master’s degree holders is particularly small or negative, while in other countries, such as Korea, Latvia and Türkiye, doctorate holders enjoy a more pronounced advantage. These differences in employment rates across countries likely reflect underlying differences in labour market demand for advanced qualifications as well as the sectoral composition of employment.
The overall good performance of doctorate holders in terms of employment should not be a cause for complacency. Aggregate statistics for the entire population do not reflect the outcomes of doctorate holders at different stages of their careers and may not fully capture the experiences of the most recent graduates, as Box 3.2 shows.
Employment rate for degree holders aged 25-64
Notes: Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania, 2022 for Indonesia and Slovenia, and 2023 for Austria, Brazil, EU27 average, Finland, Iceland, Italy, OECD average, Portugal, Spain and the United States.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
To understand the employment prospects of early-career professionals, the ReICO National Contact Points annual data collection on doctorate and master's degree holders distinguishes between two groups based on graduation year: recently graduated doctorate holders who completed their degrees within the past five years (hereafter, “recent doctorate holders”), and other doctorate holders who have had degrees longer. Although only a few countries are able to report data on the employment characteristics of recent doctorate holders, the information collected provides a unique perspective on the initial transition from doctoral education to the labour market. The available data shed light on employment rates, full-time employment patterns, and contractual arrangements, offering valuable insights into the employment prospects of early-career doctorate holders who stay in the R&I workforce in the coming years.
What age are recent doctorate holders?
In all reporting countries, more than three-quarters of recent doctorate holders are under the age of 45. However, the age composition of recent doctorate holders varies considerably across countries. Individuals aged 25-34 account for more than 60% of recent doctorate holders in Italy and Switzerland, compared with less than 30% in Brazil and Finland. These differences may reflect variation across countries in the age at entry to and graduation from doctoral programmes (see Chapter 2), and the extent to which individuals accumulate professional experience before undertaking doctoral studies.
How do recent doctorate holders fare in terms of employment?
Figure 3.13 shows mixed employment outcomes for recent doctorate holders across countries. In Czechia, Lithuania and the United States, the employment rate of recent doctorate holders exceeds that of doctorate holders overall by at least 2 percentage points. By contrast, in Hungary and Portugal, recent doctorate holders appear less likely to be employed, with employment rates approximately 8 percentage points lower than those observed for all doctorate holders. These differences may reflect the varying opportunities with countries for recent graduates transitioning into the labour market.
Notes: 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Belgium and Canada, and 2023 for Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Portugal and the United States. 2. Different data source used for employment rate of all doctorate holders. 3. Recent doctorate holders cover graduates within the last four years only.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
What are employment conditions of recent doctorate holders?
In six countries with comparable data (Brazil, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Switzerland), employed recent doctorate holders were just as likely to work full-time as employed doctorate holders overall and employed recent master's degree holders. However, differences emerge with respect to contractual arrangements. In four countries with latest data (Czechia, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland), the percentages of employed doctorate holders holding indefinite contracts are 16 to 26 percentage points below that of employed doctorate holders overall. Moreover, the gap in each country larger than that among master’s degree holders. These findings suggest that recent doctorate holders are more likely to be employed under temporary contractual arrangements during the early stages of their careers.
What are the current limitations and prospects for tracking recent doctorate holders?
The analysis of recent doctorate holders remains constrained by limited country coverage. Alternative data sources, such as the European Union Labour Force Survey, also provide limited data on recent doctorate holders. However, indicators from these sources were not included in this analysis as recent doctorate holders represent a relatively small population group, thus the values are less reliable. Nevertheless, progress is being made. Countries such as Brazil and Canada have established national initiatives that link doctorate graduate records with employment data (see Chapter 5). As data availability improves and time series become established, these efforts will provide a stronger evidence base on the labour market transition and early-career outcomes of recent doctorate holders.
Note: Some data presented in this box are not available on the public version of the ReICO database given the limited country coverage.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database, June 2026, and internal database.
Full-time work remains the norm among doctorates, although at lower rates for women
Full-time work is the norm for those with advanced qualifications in most countries, as Figure 3.14 shows. Across the OECD, doctorate holders are slightly more likely than master's degree holders to hold full-time employment contracts, with 90.1% of employed doctorate holders working full time on average across OECD countries, compared with 88.5% of master's degree holders.
Percentage of employed doctorate or master’s degree holders aged 25-64 in the same sex group
Notes: Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Australia and Belgium, 2022 for Austria and Luxembourg (master’s degree), and 2023 for Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, OECD average (doctorate), Türkiye and the United States.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
However, there is wide divergence in full time employment rates across countries and different groups. These reflect the overall greater prevalence of part-time working arrangements in some countries, such as Austria, Germany and Switzerland, where shares of employees working full-time are below 80% for both doctorate and master’s degree holders. Conversely, in several countries, including Croatia, Poland, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic, full-time employment rates exceed 95% for both qualification groups.
On average in OECD countries, 85.6% of employed women holding a doctorate worked full time in 2024, compared with 90.1% for doctorate holders overall, while the corresponding figures for master's degree holders were 83.6% and 88.5%. Gaps in full-time employment rates are particularly large in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, whereas women doctorate holders continue to display relatively high rates of full-time employment in several other countries, exceeding 95% in Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania, the Slovak Republic and Türkiye.
Overall, Figure 3.14 indicates that, although employment rates among doctorate and master’s holders are generally high across OECD countries, the extent of their labour market integration and the intensity of participation, as reflected in full-time employment, varies across countries and population groups, providing a more nuanced picture of their effective availability to participate in R&I activities.
Doctorate holders are less likely to hold indefinite duration contracts in some countries
Patterns of employment stability among doctorate holders, as shown in Figure 3.15, differ somewhat from the patterns shown above for full-time employment. Contractual employment terms provide potential indicators of job stability, separating between indefinite duration contracts and fixed term ones typically associated with timebound projects. Indefinite duration contracts, however, may also differ in terms of job security, from academic tenure and civil service-like appointments to contracts that may be terminated at short notice with limited justification and/or compensation by the employer. Unfortunately, official labour market statistics do not typically distinguish between different types of indefinite employment contracts. They also do not provide information on whether fixed term contracts are part of a formal track towards indefinite employment, which would be relevant, for example, for distinguishing between tenure track and post-doctoral jobs.
On average across OECD countries, doctorate holders are slightly less likely than master's degree holders to hold an indefinite duration contract, with corresponding shares of 87.7% and 91.7%, respectively. This gap may reflect the greater prevalence of fixed-term positions among doctorate holders in research-intensive careers, particularly in the early stages of careers in higher education and public research, where postdoctoral and project-based appointments are common. Overall, however, indefinite employment remains the norm for doctorate holders in all countries, and in some countries (Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Türkiye) shares with indefinite contracts exceed 95%. This likely reflects the weight of established doctoral holders in relation to early career staff.
Doctorate holders exhibit considerably greater cross-country variation in shares with indefinite employment than master's degree holders (Figure 3.15), spanning as much as 34 percentage points (between Estonia and Portugal) compared to just under 17 percentage point range for master’s degree holders (between Türkiye and Korea), indicating that the employment advantage associated with a doctorate in some countries does not always translate into greater employment stability relative to individuals holding a master's degree.
Women doctorate holders generally record slightly lower rates of indefinite employment than doctorate holders, although the magnitude of the gap varies considerably across countries. The difference exceeds 7 percentage points in Korea and 8 percentage points in Czechia, while little or no gap is observed in countries such as Denmark, Estonia and Türkiye. In a small number of countries, including Belgium, Cyprus, and Finland, women doctorate holders are marginally more likely than the overall population of doctorate holders to hold indefinite contracts. Overall, differences between women and men doctorate holders in prevalence of permanent employment tend to be smaller than those found for full-time employment, as presented in Figure 3.14.
Percentage of employed doctorate or master’s degree holders aged 25-64 in the same sex group
Notes: Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Canada, 2022 for Estonia (doctorate) and Luxembourg (doctorate), and 2023 for Czechia, Ireland (doctorate), OECD average (doctorate), Portugal (doctorate), Spain and Türkiye.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
Industry destinations differ for doctorate holders and master’s degree holders
While the labour market outcomes of doctorate holders are often assessed in terms of employment rates, earnings or contract stability, the sectors in which they work are also relevant, indicating the extent to which highly trained personnel contribute to knowledge creation, innovation and the application of scientific expertise. Although employment in a given industry does not necessarily imply direct involvement in R&D, a higher concentration of doctorate holders in more R&D-intensive industries may signal stronger links between advanced research training and innovation-driven economic activity.
While industries typically associated with the business sector such as manufacturing, utilities, trade and business services (namely ISIC industry groups A to N, a group often described in official statistics as the Market Economy) remains the largest employer of both doctorate and master’s degree holders in many countries, doctorate holders are substantially more likely to be found in other industries such as education and public administration than master's degree holders (Figure 3.16).
Percentage of employed doctorate or master’s degree holders aged 25-64
Notes: Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Reference year differs: 2020 for Austria (doctorate), 2021 for Austria (master’s degree), Croatia, Finland (doctorate), Italy, Lithuania and Romania, and 2023 for Brazil (doctorate), New Zealand, Spain and the United States.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
On average across the countries covered by ReICO with available data, education accounts for around one-third of employment among doctorate holders and reaches almost 68% in Brazil, 61% in Croatia and over 40% in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the United States, compared with typical shares of 12-34% among master's degree holders, reflecting the importance of higher education institutions as employers of researchers. In contrast, master's degree holders are more frequently employed in the market economy, with employed shares reaching over 70% in Romania and 62% in Switzerland.
The distribution of doctorate holders across sectors other than education or market sectors also varies considerably across countries. Public administration and defence accounts for 17% of employed doctorate holders in Brazil and around 10% in Italy and New Zealand, reflecting an important role for doctorate-qualified personnel in government agencies, public research organisations and policy-related activities in these countries. Substantial shares of doctorate holders are also employed in human health and social work activities account in several countries, accounting for 28% of employment among doctorate holders in Switzerland and 23% in Estonia (Figure 3.16).
Compared with doctorate holders, master's degree holders generally display a more homogeneous employment profile across countries. As mentioned, the market economy is consistently the dominant employer, while education plays a comparatively smaller role in their employment than it does for doctorate holders. Employment is also more evenly distributed across other sectors, including public administration and health. Thus, Figure 3.16 suggests that master's degree holders tend to be spread more broadly across economic activities, whereas doctorate holders are more concentrated in a smaller number of sectors, particularly education and, in some countries, health-related activities.
On average, doctorate holders enjoy an earnings premium compared with master’s degree holders
On average across the OECD, doctorate holders earned approximately USD 76 501 per year in 2024, adjusted for cost-of-living using purchasing power parities and in constant prices, with average salaries in individual countries ranging from nearly USD 130 000 in Luxembourg to below USD 20 000 in the Slovak Republic (Figure 3.17). Beyond differences in earnings levels, available data indicates that doctorate holders enjoy a substantial earnings advantage over master's degree holders in many countries. The OECD average doctorate earnings premium stands at 25%, but reaches 70% in Iceland, while average premia are lower than 10% in France and slightly negative in Norway and the Slovak Republic.
While earnings are an important indicator of the private returns to doctoral education, they provide only a partial picture of the experiences and career outcomes associated with doctoral training. In recent years, there has been growing attention among policymakers not only to the labour market outcomes of doctoral education, but to the overall quality and sustainability of research careers. Early-career research positions are often characterised by fixed term contracts, uncertain career prospects and intense competition for permanent posts. Such conditions undermine incentives to pursue or continue with research and closely related careers and hinder retention of highly skilled talent within R&I systems, with implications for the returns from substantial private and public investments in this talent.
Doctorate earnings premium (% of master’s- left axis) and doctorates’ average gross yearly earnings (right axis)
Notes: Individuals aged 25-64. Data for more countries are available on the database. 1. Reference year differs: 2021 for Canada, Greece and Iceland, and 2023 for Lithuania and New Zealand.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on multiple data sources, June 2026. Further information on the specific sources used to compute this indicator can be found in the metadata of the ReICO database.
Employment conditions and the quality of research jobs may also shape wider aspects of individual well-being of doctorate holders not covered by conventional labour market indicators. While, as highlighted in this chapter, doctorate holders generally enjoy positive labour market outcomes, questions remain about how these outcomes translate into broader measures of their quality of life and how these measures compare to other population groups. Box 3.3 broadens the analysis presented in this chapter thus far by examining comparative indicators of well-being and living conditions among doctorate holders and other highly educated individuals.
Earnings provide an important indicator of the returns to doctoral education, but capture only one dimension of the outcomes associated with R&I careers. Examining quality-of-life outcomes alongside earnings provides a fuller picture of outcomes of individuals with doctoral training. Evidence for European countries shows that doctorate holders are generally more likely to report feeling happy than the population as a whole, as measured by respective shares reporting feeling happy most of the time over the past four weeks in the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) (Figure 3.18). Differences between doctorate and master’s holders in reported happiness are more modest in most countries (Figure 3.18. Panel A).
Patterns for the shares reporting satisfaction with leisure time are less uniform, with differences between doctorate and master’s holders varying more in magnitude and direction across countries (Figure 3.18. Panel B). However, in several countries doctorate holders do report stronger satisfaction with their financial situation, consistent with their generally favourable earnings and employment outcomes. For this latter indicator, the OECD average gap reaches almost 5 percentage points compared to master’s degree holders (Figure 3.18. Panel C).
Expanding the evidence base on these dimensions, including their extension to a wider and more relevant range of indicators and countries, could help provide a richer understanding of the experiences of doctorate holders and other highly skilled individuals, complementing established indicators of employment, earnings and career progression within research and innovation systems.
Percentage point difference between two groups (left axis) and percentage of doctorate holders (right axis)
Note: Data for more countries are available on the database.
Source: OECD, Research and Innovation Career Observatory (ReICO) Database based on EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, June 2026.
This chapter shows that R&I systems across the OECD are creating growing opportunities for highly skilled workers. The high shares of R&D expenditure on labour costs, along with the expansion of shares of R&D personnel and STEM workforce, show that R&D remains a people-intensive activity. Differences in expenditure across different R&D-performing sectors indicate, however, that rewards and conditions for R&D work vary considerably. The chapter also shows that doctorate holders generally experience strong labour market outcomes, including high employment rates and earnings premia, although important differences remain across countries and career stages, particularly relating to employment stability. As R&I workforces continue to expand, the quality, stability and rewards available within R&I careers will remain central to attracting highly skilled talent, including talent from abroad, as discussed in the next chapter.
References
[8] Auriol, L., M. Misu and R. Freeman (2013), “Careers of Doctorate Holders: Analysis of Labour Market and Mobility Indicators”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers, No. 2013/4, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5k43nxgs289w-en.
[7] OECD (2026), Gross domestic expenditure on R&D by sector of performance and type of expenditure, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?lc=en&df[ds]=DisseminateFinalDMZ&df[id]=DSD_RDS_GERD%40DF_GERD_TOE&df[ag]=OECD.STI.STP&df[vs]=1.0&av=true&dq=.A.._T..CUR_LC%2B_T....USD_PPP.V&pd=2021,&to[TIME_PERIOD]=false&ly[cl]=TIME_PERIOD&ly[rw]=REF_AREA&vw=tb.
[6] OECD (2026), OECD overall R&D growth stable; government R&D budgets decline and reorient towards defence, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2026/03/oecd-overall-rd-growth-stable-government-rd-budgets-decline-and-reorient-towards-defence.html.
[5] OECD (2026), ReICO Database, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?lc=en&df[ds]=DisseminateFinalDMZ&df[id]=DSD_REICO_KEY%40DF_ALL&df[ag]=OECD.STI.STP&df[vs]=2.0&av=true&dq=.PHDWAPTXWF&lom=LASTNPERIODS&lo=5&to[TIME_PERIOD]=false.
[2] OECD (2026), The research and innovation workforce continues to expand across the OECD, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2026/06/the-research-and-innovation-workforce-continues-to-expand-across-the-oecd.html.
[9] OECD (2025), Education at a Glance 2025: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/1c0d9c79-en.
[1] OECD (2021), Reducing the precarity of academic research careers”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/0f8bd468-en.
[4] OECD (2015), Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development, The Measurement of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Activities, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264239012-en.
[3] OECD/Eurostat (2018), Oslo Manual 2018: Guidelines for Collecting, Reporting and Using Data on Innovation, OECD Publishing / Eurostat, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264304604-en.