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Expert in research and policy analysis
€6,153 - €6,961/month 2 days left to apply
European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training
CEDEFOP
The EU's reference center for vocational education and training, providing research and policy analysis.
About CEDEFOP
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) is the EU's research and policy agency on vocational education and training (VET) and adult learning. Founded by Council Regulation (EEC) No 337/75 in 1975 — making it one of the oldest EU agencies — and based in Thessaloniki, Greece since 1995, CEDEFOP supports the European Commission, member states, and social partners with applied research, skills intelligence, and policy analysis on lifelong learning, qualifications, and the link between training systems and labour markets. It is small (around 120 staff) but produces some of the EU's most consulted labour-market intelligence: the European Skills Index, the Skills Forecast, the Skills-OVATE online vacancy analysis, and the European Inventory of validation of non-formal and informal learning. The agency's mandate was recast by Regulation (EU) 2019/128 in line with the modernisation of EU agency rules. CEDEFOP works in close partnership with the European Training Foundation (ETF) on third-country VET reform and with Eurofound on the labour-market dimensions of vocational education.
Mission and mandate
CEDEFOP's mandate is set out in Regulation (EU) 2019/128 of the European Parliament and of the Council, repealing the original 1975 founding regulation. The Centre's mission is to contribute to the formulation and implementation of EU vocational education and training, skills, and qualifications policies. In practice this translates into four output streams: applied research on VET systems, labour-market and skills intelligence, policy support to member states implementing EU instruments such as the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and Europass, and support to the European Commission on EU-level VET policy.
The Centre's work feeds directly into the Commission's European Year of Skills initiatives, the European Skills Agenda, the Pact for Skills, and recurring Council Recommendations on VET. CEDEFOP's signature analytical products are quoted across the EU policy machinery and by national VET authorities, and its biennial European Skills Index is one of the few cross-EU comparable measurements of skills systems performance.
Governance is tripartite — the Management Board includes representatives of governments, employer organisations, and worker organisations from each member state, plus three Commission representatives, reflecting the agency's social-dialogue origins. This is unusual among EU agencies and shapes the agency's culture: outputs are typically vetted with social partners before publication, and CEDEFOP's research questions are heavily influenced by the priorities of the EU social partners (BusinessEurope, ETUC, SGI Europe, SMEunited).
Structure and departments
CEDEFOP is organised into three departments plus the Director's office. The Department for Learning and Employability covers applied research on VET systems and learning pathways, including apprenticeships, work-based learning, lifelong learning, and the integration of disadvantaged groups into VET. Staff here run thematic research projects, produce country reports under the ReferNet network of national correspondents, and contribute to peer-learning activities under the EU's Open Method of Coordination on VET.
The Department for VET and Skills covers skills intelligence — the Skills Forecast, the European Skills Index, Skills-OVATE, the European skills and jobs survey, and topic-specific skills analyses (digital, green, health). This is the agency's most data-intensive function and recruits researchers with quantitative backgrounds (econometrics, labour economics, occupational analysis). The Department for Resources and Support covers HR, finance, IT, communication, and corporate-governance functions.
The Director's office houses the legal counsel, internal audit, data protection officer, and inter-agency relations functions. CEDEFOP works closely with the European Training Foundation (ETF, Turin), Eurofound (Dublin), and EU-OSHA (Bilbao) — the three other tripartite EU agencies in the social-affairs cluster — and with European Commission DG EMPL, DG EAC, and the Joint Research Centre's CRELL Centre on lifelong learning indicators.
Hiring landscape over the last 12 months
The current snapshot shows 2 active CEDEFOP vacancies. By contract type, one is a temporary agent and one is a traineeship. By grade, the TA post is at AD6/AD7/AD8/AD9 (a single notice published as a multi-grade band), and the traineeship is the agency's annual cohort intake. Both posts are based in Thessaloniki.
The TA Accounting Officer post (AD6–AD9 band) sits in the Department for Resources and Support and is responsible for the agency's financial accounting, accounts closure, and reporting to the Commission's accounting officer for consolidation purposes. The grade band reflects flexibility for the agency to offer at the level matching the candidate's experience — a candidate with 6+ years of relevant accounting experience can land at AD8 or AD9 step 1, while a candidate with 3–5 years would more likely land at AD6 or AD7. The traineeship cohort runs annually, is paid (rate set under the Traineeship Decision), and lasts nine months; trainees typically rotate through one of the research departments.
The small snapshot understates the agency's true volume. Outside the snapshot CEDEFOP recruits researchers with backgrounds in education, labour economics, occupational analysis, and policy evaluation; data scientists for skills-intelligence work; legal officers for governance and procurement; and corporate-services staff. Three notable recurring posting types worth flagging: AD6 Researcher in apprenticeships and work-based learning (the agency's flagship research stream, drawing heavily from labour-market and education-policy backgrounds); AD7 Senior Researcher in skills forecasting (quantitative, drawing on national statistical-office and econometrics backgrounds); FG IV Project Officer in the Department for VET and Skills (running country case studies and stakeholder consultations).
Salary realism by grade and the Thessaloniki coefficient
CEDEFOP pays under the EU Staff Regulations grid. Step 1 of the 2024/2025 grid: AD5 €6,153, AD6 €6,961, AD7 €7,876, AD9 €10,083; FG III €3,476, FG IV €4,449. The Greek correction coefficient for Thessaloniki is 86.6, so an AD7 step 1 in Thessaloniki grosses approximately €6,821 monthly basic; an AD9 step 1 is approximately €8,732; an FG IV step 1 is approximately €3,853.
Layer on the standard allowances. Expatriation (16%) applies for staff who did not reside in Greece for the five years prior to recruitment; foreign-residence (4%) applies for residents-but-non-nationals on the alternative basis. Household, dependent-child, and education allowances apply on the standard EU grid. The education allowance covers most of the cost of international or English-language schooling — important because Thessaloniki's English-language schooling options are more limited than in Brussels, Amsterdam, or Frankfurt, and many CEDEFOP families with school-aged children rely on the German School of Thessaloniki, the American Farm School, or the Anatolia College K-12 system.
Thessaloniki's cost of living is substantially below Brussels — particularly for housing, where two-bedroom apartments in expatriate-friendly Kalamaria, the city centre, or the seafront typically run €700–€1,400/month. Net purchasing power for an AD7 in Thessaloniki is broadly comparable to an AD7 in Brussels, with significantly more disposable income for non-housing expenditure but a thinner job market for accompanying partners (a recurring practical issue at Thessaloniki). The 86.6 coefficient makes the city one of the better-value duty stations for staff without dual-career constraints.
Languages, network, and competition profile
English is the working language. French is rarely required. Knowledge of additional EU languages is valued for desk-research work covering particular member-state VET systems. Greek is useful for daily life in Thessaloniki but is not required for the work itself. Knowledge of a second EU language is the regulatory minimum for AD posts.
A distinctive CEDEFOP feature is the ReferNet network of national correspondents — a national institute or ministry-affiliated body in each member state contributes country reports on VET developments. CEDEFOP staff work daily with these correspondents, and the agency's research depends on this network. The same network is a recruitment feeder: many AD researcher hires come from national education or labour-market research institutes that participate in ReferNet (the FiBS in Germany, INAPP in Italy, CEREQ in France, the State Education Development Agency in Latvia, etc.).
CEDEFOP does not recruit through EPSO. All AD, AST, FG, and SNE posts are advertised directly on the agency's careers page at cedefop.europa.eu, and TA notices are also cross-listed on the EU Careers portal. AD selection cycles are typically small (a single notice with a handful of finalists), with a written test (often a research summary or policy analysis task on a CEDEFOP-relevant question), a panel interview, and a brief presentation.
Application paths
Three routes into CEDEFOP. Temporary agent: respond to a published vacancy notice for an AD or AST post; the typical researcher post is AD6 or AD7 with a five-year renewable contract. Mid-career researchers with national-institute or PhD backgrounds are well represented. Contract agent: register on CAST Permanent and apply to FG III/IV vacancies referencing the CAST pool — corporate-services and project-management posts are usually recruited this way. Seconded national expert: civil servants from national education ministries or labour-market authorities can apply through their national point of contact for SNE postings of typically 2–4 years.
The traineeship programme is small (typically 8–10 trainees per cohort) but a meaningful feeder into later FG IV CA or AD5 TA posts, and a useful platform for early-career researchers with a postgraduate degree to gain CEDEFOP-specific experience.
A practical note: CEDEFOP's hiring volume is modest relative to larger agencies, but the agency is a destination employer for researchers with VET, skills-policy, or labour-economics backgrounds. Candidates without policy-research experience but with strong quantitative skills (data science, econometrics) are increasingly competitive in the skills-intelligence stream, where the Skills-OVATE work and the European Skills Index require modern data-engineering capability. The Director's office and the Resources Department have stable corporate-services hiring that runs continuously across the year.
Frequently asked questions
- Is CEDEFOP a research institute or a policy office?
- Both. The agency produces applied research and labour-market intelligence (closer to a research institute) and translates it into policy support for the European Commission, member states, and social partners (closer to a policy office). The two functions are integrated, and most senior researchers split their time between published research outputs and direct policy advisory work.
- Do I need a PhD to work at CEDEFOP?
- Not always. Many AD researcher roles list a relevant master's degree as the minimum, with a PhD listed as an asset. Some senior researcher posts in the skills-forecasting and the comparative VET-systems streams effectively require a doctorate to be competitive. Project officer (FG IV) and corporate-services posts do not require a PhD.
- How does CEDEFOP differ from the European Training Foundation (ETF)?
- CEDEFOP works on EU member-state VET systems and labour markets. The ETF (Turin, Italy) supports VET reform in EU partner countries — the candidate countries, the southern and eastern neighbourhood, and Central Asia. The two agencies cooperate closely on methodologies and on cross-cutting work (such as the Torino Process), but their geographic remits are distinct.
- Are CEDEFOP posts only for people with EU-policy backgrounds?
- No. Many AD researcher hires come from national education or labour-market research institutes (the agency's ReferNet partners) without prior EU institutional experience. Quantitative researchers are increasingly being recruited from national statistical offices and from the academic labour-economics community.
- Is Thessaloniki a comfortable duty station for non-Greek-speaking expatriates?
- Yes — the agency's working language is English and most expatriate staff get by without learning Greek beyond conversational basics. The international community is smaller than in Brussels or Frankfurt and English-language schooling options are concentrated in a handful of institutions. The cost of living is among the lowest of any EU duty station, and housing in seafront and central neighbourhoods is comparatively easy to find.
- What is the traineeship programme like at CEDEFOP?
- Paid, nine-month placements with annual cohorts, typically 8–10 trainees rotating through one of the research departments. The programme is selective, the work is substantive (trainees often co-author published outputs), and it is a recognised feeder into later FG IV CA or AD5 TA posts. Applications are submitted via the agency's careers page in line with the published cohort timing.
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