University professor salary in Poland?

One thing I'm trying to research is, what is a reasonable expectation for a university professor/lecturer's salary in Poland? Say, at Warsaw or the Jagiellonien (sp?). My husband is wanting to make a career move, and we could go to the States, but I thought he might have a better opportunity getting a job as an English professor in Poland (there are SO MANY English Ph.D's fighting over the jobs in the U.S.). He's semi-interested except he thinks he'll make "nothing". Of course I wouldn't think you could expect what he makes now (approx C$6,000/month), but wouldn't a professor make something like 5-6,000 zl. a month? Or am I just "whistling Dixie" here? (What Southerners and Texans say to mean, "you are not being realistic!") Thanks for any feedback.

i'm afraid you are. university salary in Poland as far as I remember falls aroung 3/4k zł (or even lower). if your husband wants to be a professor and have a decent salary along with it, Poland isn't the right choice. a salary of the level $6k in academia happens pretty much only in the states, perhaps England (this one I don't really know). but I know very well the academic world in the other parts of Western Europe and Poland and I must say he's right. sorry.

I don't know. Even If so, then there are many opportunities to make extra cash, so he should easily make much more... there are native English speakers in Poland, who make not bad money teaching English without any qualifications to do that.

My father-in-law said that Polish professors used to receive bonuses from the government when they published papers, monographs, books, etc., and that the Polish profs he met at academic conferences said that this was a big help to their income - there's nothing like that in North America or Britain. However, he did say that that system of bonuses was under the "old" regime (pre-1989) and he didn't know if it was still how things were done.

Obviously, not anything we are going to act on tomorrow, but I appreciate the feedback and look forward to hearing what anyone else has to say!

3000-4000 zl. net for prof in Lublin.

Thanks moire

Just keep in mind that in Lublin salaries are a bit (sometime even more than a bit) lower than in most big Polish cities.

he is right !!!!!

Even so, 4 thousand zl a month is enough to have a comfortable life in Poland.

Not if you have kids well its comfortable but you have nothing saved at the end of the month.

Is it common for universities when hiring a foreign professor to offer the spouse a job too? I have been offered a position but my wife would need some kind of work as well. The position offers around 5600 zl per mth. (gross).

I've never heard of it being a customory activity for a Polish university. I mean, to find employment for the academic staff's spouses. Nope. Obviously, after a while the teacher gets contacts, and if there's an opening, they would normally first look for someone from their circle, rather than outside the univresity..

Academic teachers may not be earning that much, but you have to remember there are private schools and their range of pay may vary. And as someone mentioned, there are other ways of getting extra money..

Thanks, KasiaG. Here in Canada it's common for universities to offer what's called "spousal hire" as well, usually in some capacity within the university. I think I'll still try to pitch that to the institution that's offering me the job and see what happens. I just think it would be hard to convince my wife to go without a job; the main problem of course is that she doesn't speak a work of Polish.

As many posters have said before its about 3-4k zl, but my wife is a Phd doctor and makes that herself and her Professors make twice that amount by being involved in many projects. They also receive a lot of money working as advisers for companies, which can again double their earnings.

I wonder how hard (or otherwise) it would be for a Professor of English to land a side job in some advisory or consulting capacity for a company.

There was evidence of some professors getting 18,000PLN a month. It turns out that there was some cheating going on.