The Netherlands has one of the cleaner answers to the salary question, because it comes at it twice: a national survey graduates fill in, and a register that reads the actual numbers. The survey is the Nationale Alumni Enquête (NAE), run jointly by the Dutch universities; the register work is SEO’s Studie & Werk, built on Statistics Netherlands (CBS) microdata. Both look at research-university (WO) master’s graduates about 1.5 years out. I focused on the economics and business field, the closest match to a Master in Management.
The headline: in work fast, and at the top of the pay table
Start with speed and security, because the Dutch numbers here are strong. In the 2025 NAE, 93 percent of WO master’s graduates were in the working labour force, the average time to a paid job was 3.5 months, and 81 percent were working within six months. And economics and business is not a middling field — across the WO wage ranking it sits at the very top, beaten only by the medical degrees.
What the first job pays
A WO master’s graduate in economics and business earns about €3,613 gross per month roughly 1.5 years out — around €43,000 gross per year — which is some 15 percent above the all-WO-master average of €3,150. These are gross monthly figures (Dutch bruto). The register only publishes an hourly wage at the aggregate WO level (around €20–21 an hour), not per field, so the monthly number is the one to anchor on.
One honest note the Dutch data forces: the most recent register cohort shows a small real-wage dip versus the 2018–19 peak, because 2021–22 inflation outran collective pay rises. SEO expects real wages to catch back up — but it is the same cohort effect visible across European graduate data right now.
Permanent contracts: the WO exception
Here is where economics and business pulls ahead of its own university type. About 63 percent are on a permanent (vast) contract 1.5 years out, against roughly 47 percent across all WO master’s — and Accounting and Control leads the entire WO field at around 75 percent. That is counter-intuitive until you see why: WO graduates overall have fewer permanent contracts than applied-university (HBO) graduates, because so many WO grads continue into specialist or research tracks. Economics and business is the cluster that goes straight into stable, well-paid corporate roles instead.
Working at your level — and the field’s edge over time
Match is good: 68 percent of economics and business graduates work at their own education level and 73 percent in their own or a related field, both above the 57.9 percent functional match the 2025 survey reports across all WO master’s. And the field’s real advantage is the slope. The Dutch register expresses field pay as a percentage above law graduates rather than in euros, and on that scale Finance, Econometrics and Fiscal Economics show the steepest growth — Finance moves from about +11 percent as a starter to roughly +22 to +25 percent by ten years out. Time to a substantial job is fastest in the same fields: Fiscal Economics 2.2 months, Accounting 2.4, Econometrics 2.7.
The gender gap is small at the start, wider later
The Netherlands publishes the gender gap only at the aggregate WO level, not by field. Controlling for study, hours and institution, WO women earn about 1 percent less than men as starters, widening to about 6 percent by ten years out. It is one of the smaller entry gaps in this series — but, as everywhere, it grows with experience.
How to read this for your own decision
A Dutch MiM, taken in the economics and business track, is one of the strongest combinations in Europe on paper: fast to a job, high odds of a permanent contract, good qualification match, top-of-table pay, and a steep growth curve in the finance and econometrics specialisms. The one thing the Dutch data does not give you that France’s does is a sector-by-sector destination map — the Dutch cut is by study field, not employer industry.
For the live, school-by-school version, the MiM careers page for the Netherlands tracks each program’s outcomes and the orientation-year work rules. Read it next to the UK tax-record data, the other high-pay Northern-European market, and the French CGE breakdown. If marketing is your target track, note it sits lower in the pay distribution — the marketing career path post explains why — and if you are still deciding on the degree itself, start with is the MiM worth it in 2026.
Sources: Nationale Alumni Enquête 2025 (Universiteiten van Nederland / Centerdata) for employment, time-to-job and match; SEO Economisch Onderzoek, “Studie & Werk HO 2023” (CBS microdata) for wage trajectory and contract type; Studiekeuze123 “Economics and Business (WO master)” for the field-level salary, contract and match figures. All pay figures are gross (Dutch bruto).