Working Conditions

Understanding the Danish public sector employment and compensation model.

Still awake after reading that sentence?

It may be better to refer to it more directly as “what is the salary like?”, but unfortunately you don’t get to talk about one without the other in Denmark.

That is because the Danish public sector works exclusively through collective bargaining agreements. These agreements, usually renegotiated every 2-4 years, dictate salary conditions for personnel employed in public institutions, including medical personnel.

This means that you don’t get to negotiate much of what goes into your salary as a doctor. These are instead negotiated on your behalf by a union and your salary is then dictated by what aspects of the overall agreement can be attributed to you.

Almost every aspect of your employment is governed by this agreement, including:

• Salary
• Pension
• Holiday
• Overtime
• Sick leave
• Maternity leave
• Termination

And more.

What does that mean for my salary?

It means a few things. Firstly, that your own influence regarding much of your salary is taken away. For some, this will seem like a negative; for others, a relief. Regardless of how you feel on the subject, it is not going to change the outcome.

Salary is structured based on your placement within a hospital. As an example, if you work as a unit specialist, regardless of wheter you are a pathologist or a surgeon, your basic monthly salary in 2024 equates to 62.994,00 DKK (approximately 8,445€). If instead you are hired as a consultant (overlæge), which in Denmark is a senior position, your basic starting salary is instead 68.265,83 DKK (2024) plus a mandatory supplement of 1,593.92 DKK, totalling 69,859.75 DKK (approximately 9,366€).

On top of the basic salaries, there might be supplements depending on function, location, and shift work. If you are freshly out of school, there might not be many supplements for you to acquire before you have garnered some experience. However, if you come with specialized experience, there is a high chance that some extra supplements will be added to your contract. 

Overtime is another area where there is a difference depending on your employment level. Unit specialists will be compensated for overtime work, whereas consultants will not get the same compensation due to their higher base salary and access to supplements. Consultants will instead receive time off in lieu, as their working time needs to average 37 hours per week. Consultants also have the opportunity for voluntary additional work, which will be compensated in accordance with the collective agreement.

Advancement

Denmark has multiple levels of doctors, each with a different salary level, these are as follows:

• Læge – Physician with basic training completed. Has not yet finished a specialisation.
• Afdelingslæge – Unit specialist, with a completed specialisation.
• Overlæge – Consultant, a position that usually comes with more responsibility and often has a minimum experience requirement.
• Ledende Overlæge – Lead Consultant, more experienced consultants, with more personnel responsibility.
• Cheflæge – Chief Consultant, head of department.

This means that there are multiple levels of advancement within the Danish healthcare system, depending on where you want to go in your career.

Working hours

Here is where Danish culture starts to make its mark. In Denmark, everyone, including doctors and other medical professionals, has a standardized average 37-hour work week unless otherwise specified in their contract. You are not allowed to have more than 37 hours as base in your contract, but you are allowed to have less. 

What this means is that your working hours should average out to 37 hours per week. As a unit specialist, every hour extending beyond that average on a monthly basis is paid out as overtime. As a consultant, some amount of overtime is baked into your base salary, and as such, you are not compensated for overtime to the same extent but receive hours off in lieu. That might sound bad, but once you understand how seriously the Danish system takes working hours and work/life balance, you’ll notice that you are not taken advantage of—quite the opposite. Many of our candidates experience a drastic reduction in working hours, some upwards of 30+ hours a week.

Holliday

Danish employment law mandates a minimum of five weeks’ paid holidays for all full-time employees. Furthermore, the collective agreements mandate an additional sixth week of holiday for doctors employed by the Regions.

The regular five-week holiday time is accrued monthly, with each month earning 2.08 days of time off. The holiday year runs from September to September, and you can use the accrued time from September to December, giving you 16 months to use accrued holiday time instead of only 12.

To make things a bit more convoluted, the sixth week of holiday works a bit differently. It is accrued from the 1st of May to the 30th of April each year. You can also choose to have the sixth week paid out instead of using it as holidays.

Pension

Pension as a doctor in Denmark is pretty straightforward on the surface. It is only when you start explaining how it works that it can get a bit confusing. But it is important to understand, as it plays a big role in your total compensation package.

We will try to make it as clear as possible.

As an example:

As of writing, a consultant earns monthly pension of 19.54% (this is subject to change, depending on collective agreement negotiations). This is paid into a mandatory pension fund for doctors, stipulated in the collective agreement.

Of those 19.54%, 1/3 is technically yout own contribution. This means that you have paid 1/3 of the contribution from your salary. However, this has been done before you even see your salary. As such, your base salary of 69,859.75 DKK, will not be impacted by this own contribution.

In actuality, this means your true base salary is actually 74,409.95 DKK, but the pension contribution has been taken out beforehand.

This was done to make the payslip easier to understand. You can be the judge of whether that was successful or not.

Furthermore, you are allowed to administer every percentage point above 15% yourself. This means that the 4.54% of pension that you receive above 15, can be paid out as salary instead if you wish for it. The decision has to be made on a yearly basis, and cannot be changed once decided, until the subsequent year.

From 2025, doctors at every level will get the same opportunity.

New rates for pensions are arriving in April of 2025, as such the rates for each level looks as follows:

• Doctor – 19.36%
• Unit Specialist– 19.36%
• Consultant – 20%
• Lead Consultant – 20%
• Chief Consultant – 22%