Education · Data
Italian school principals earn nearly 3x teachers' pay, widest gap in Europe
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In brief
In the 2024/2025 school year, Italian school principals earned on average about 100,000 PPS (purchasing power standard) while teachers earned around 35,000 PPS — a ratio of roughly 2.9 to 1, the widest principal-to-teacher pay gap among the 37 European education systems covered by the EU's Eurydice network. Italian outlets reporting the data on 18–19 October 2026 and the national principals' union say the gap stems less from high principal pay than from teacher salaries that have fallen behind inflation and other graduate professions.
Italy has the largest wage gap between school principals and teachers of any education system monitored by Eurydice, the European Commission's network that tracks national education policies across 37 countries. The figures, drawn from Eurydice data for the 2024/2025 school year and reported by Italian media on 18–19 October 2026, show principals (dirigenti scolastici) earning close to three times what secondary-school teachers earn.
The numbers
According to Eurydice figures cited by Sky TG24 and Il Fatto Quotidiano, Italian principals earned an average gross salary of about 100,000 PPS (purchasing power standard, a unit Eurydice uses to make pay comparable across countries) in 2024/2025, against roughly 35,000 PPS for lower-secondary teachers. ANP, the national association of school principals, puts the ratio at 'close to 2.9', which it describes as among the highest in Europe. In plain euro terms, Sky TG24 reports principal pay at around €98,000 gross a year and teacher pay at around €34,000; ANP's own figure for principals is roughly €90,000 gross.
| Country | Principal salary | Teacher salary | Approx. ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | ~100,000 PPS | ~35,000 PPS | 2.9 |
| Austria | ~85,000 PPS | ~60,000 PPS | ~1.4 |
| France | ~63,000 PPS | ~43,000 PPS | ~1.5 |
Il Fatto Quotidiano and Sky TG24 both report that the Netherlands and Ireland have the second- and third-widest gaps in the Eurydice comparison, though neither outlet published exact PPS figures for those two countries. Sky TG24 also cites separate euro-denominated figures for France (€68,055 for principals versus €46,778 for teachers, a 45% premium) and Spain (principal pay between €51,000 and €69,000 depending on seniority, against €42,768 for a teacher with ten years of service) — figures that are not directly comparable to the PPS data because they use a different metric, but point in the same direction: no other large European system shows a gap close to Italy's.
Why the gap is this wide
ANP, the principals' union, argues the disparity is driven mainly by depressed teacher pay rather than inflated leadership salaries. In a statement on its website, the union writes that the elevated ratio exists 'above all because teachers' salaries are too low, not because principals' salaries are too high' (translated from Italian).
ANP also compares principal pay with other senior Italian public-sector roles at the same career level: second-tier directors at ISPRA, the national environmental protection agency, earned about €104,000 in 2024 — about €14,000 more than school principals — while ANP estimates, based on public data, that directors at the CNR research council earn around €130,000. The union uses these comparisons to argue principals are, in its words, 'the best paid in Europe but the worst paid in Italy' relative to peers of equivalent rank in the public administration.
ANP also points to structural features of principal pay that lag other public managers, including variable and performance-linked components, and notes that school principals are excluded from meal-voucher benefits that other school staff receive.
What principals' pay is meant to cover
ANP's statement lists the responsibilities Italian school principals carry as heads of legally autonomous institutions: workplace safety, management of school staff, management of financial resources, and overall running of the school. It adds that principals have taken on extra compliance work linked to Italy's PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) projects in schools.
Teacher pay has lagged inflation
Sky TG24 reports that between the 2020/2021 and 2024/2025 school years, principal salaries rose by about 30% while teacher salaries rose by about 7%. Over the same period, consumer prices in Italy rose by roughly 16%, according to Istat data cited in the same report — meaning teacher pay increases did not keep pace with inflation, while principal pay increases outpaced it.
ANP separately states that Italian teachers earn 'about a third less' than other Italian workers with a university degree, a comparison it uses to frame low teacher pay — rather than principal pay — as the core problem behind the ratio.
The disparity exists above all because teachers' salaries are too low, not because principals' salaries are too high.
What is still unclear
The Eurydice report covers 37 European education systems and was published in 2026 for the 2024/2025 school year, according to Italian outlets' coverage; the sources reviewed for this piece describe its findings but do not include the full original report text, so additional country-by-country detail beyond the figures above — including exact figures for the Netherlands and Ireland — was not independently verified against the primary document.
Questions
- How much more do Italian school principals earn than teachers?
- According to Eurydice figures for the 2024/2025 school year reported by Italian media, principals earned on average about 100,000 PPS against roughly 35,000 PPS for teachers — a ratio close to 2.9 to 1, or around €98,000 versus €34,000 in gross euro terms per Sky TG24's figures.
- Is Italy's gap the widest in Europe?
- Yes. Among the 37 European education systems in the Eurydice comparison, Italy has the largest difference between principal and teacher pay; the Netherlands and Ireland follow in second and third place, according to Sky TG24 and Il Fatto Quotidiano, though neither outlet reported exact figures for those two countries.
- Does this mean Italian principals are overpaid?
- ANP, the national principals' union, says no — it points to other senior Italian public-sector roles (ISPRA, CNR) that it says pay €14,000 to around €40,000 more than school principals, and argues the gap reflects teacher pay being too low rather than principal pay being too high.
- Has teacher pay kept up with inflation?
- No. Sky TG24 reports teacher salaries rose about 7% between 2020/2021 and 2024/2025 while consumer prices rose roughly 16% over the same period, per Istat data cited in that report; principal salaries rose about 30% in the same period.
- What do Italian school principals' salaries have to cover?
- ANP lists workplace safety, staff management, financial management of autonomous school budgets, and — more recently — compliance work tied to Italy's PNRR recovery-plan projects in schools.
How the world is telling it
- ItalianItalian outlets (Sky TG24, Il Fatto Quotidiano) frame the story as a European 'record' for Italy, emphasizing the near-threefold pay gap as abnormal by continental standards. ANP, the principals' union, pushes back on the framing in its own commentary, insisting the story is really about underpaid teachers and under-recognized principals rather than overpaid school leaders.
Sources
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