EU Career Paths
Competition-by-competition guides: format, eligibility, scoring weights and what each test actually measures.
Every AD5 candidate must upload their supporting documents by 7 October 2026, midday Brussels time. What the notice actually requires, the 30 September diploma date that catches final-year students, and why this deadline removes people who would have passed the tests.
Verbal 35%, EU knowledge 25%, digital skills 25%, EUFTE 15% — and numerical and abstract worth nothing at all beyond the hurdle. The arithmetic of the reserve list, and why five verbal marks beat a perfect EU knowledge paper.
EPSO is the interinstitutional office that runs the competitions for jobs in the EU institutions. What it is, why it exists, who it answers to, where it sits in Brussels — and the one thing candidates misunderstand: EPSO selects, it does not recruit.
What EU officials really earn and receive — the official 2025 salary grid, free European Schools for children, relocation and installation support, health cover and pensions — plus an interactive AD/AST calculator that estimates a monthly package for any grade, step, duty station and family situation.
Five routes into the EU institutions — permanent officials (AD, AST, AST/SC), contract agents (CAST) and temporary agents — compared on entry requirements, contract security, speed and pay, with the official 1 July 2025 salary tables and correction coefficients.
EPSO's 30 June 2026 announcement splits AD/427/26 into two testing phases: reasoning tests in Oct–Nov 2026 (10/20 verbal + 10/20 combined N+A cut-offs), then EU knowledge, digital skills and EUFTE in early 2027. Full timeline, impact on 174,922 candidates, and preparation tips.
A clear walkthrough of the 2026 EPSO AD5 Generalist competition (EPSO/AD/427/26): test format, scoring weights, pass marks, eligibility, and how to prepare. All tests are now remote, with no assessment centre.
The 2026 EPSO AD7 competition for IT professionals (EPSO/AD/429/26): the four fields (ICT infrastructure, project management, clouds & networks, data science), eligibility, the field-related MCQ test, scoring and how to prepare. Application deadline 10 June 2026.
The 2026 EPSO AD7 competition in the field of audit (EPSO/AD/428/26): eligibility and experience requirements, the field-related MCQ test, scoring and how to prepare for the EU auditor competition.
EPSO Preparation
Deep dives on each test: the format, the traps that catch candidates out, and worked examples in the official EPSO style.
A last-mile plan for the Oct–November sitting: diagnose, protect the numerical and abstract hurdle, then put everything else into verbal — the only Part 1 mark you carry into the 2027 ranking. Plus how to taper.
TAO and Proctorio, an exhaustive desk policy with no pen and no paper, a room scan, and twelve things that end your test automatically — including two minutes offline. What to set up before the day, and what happens when it goes wrong.
The AD5 reasoning tests arrive in October–November 2026. A week-by-week plan for verbal, numerical and abstract: diagnose first, drill the ranking test hardest, keep the hurdles warm, and finish with full timed mocks under remote-proctor conditions.
Most EPSO candidates sit verbal reasoning in a language they did not grow up speaking. Why competent speakers still lose marks, the five trap patterns to drill, how to choose your Language 1, a 105-second-per-question timing method, and the EU vocabulary that decides your score.
The reasoning test that counts most towards your ranking — the 20-question format, what it measures, the recurring distractor traps (overreach, subtle swap, signed-vs-entered-into-force, unstated cause), and three worked examples in the official EPSO style.
Ten questions, twenty minutes, a calculator and a data table. The arithmetic is rarely the hard part — reading the table is. The table traps (unit confusion, absolute vs relative, clustered distractors, "impossible to answer"), and three worked examples.
Ten questions in ten minutes — the most time-pressured test in the EPSO selection. No language or knowledge needed, just shapes and parallel rules. The recurring rule patterns (rotation, side count, fill, position), the single-rule trap, and three worked examples.
The largest scored test in the AD-5 selection — 30 questions on institutions, treaties, decision procedures and competences. The recurring traps (Council confusion, signed-vs-entered-into-force, QMV vs unanimity, who initiates vs who decides), and three worked examples.
Forty questions built on the DigComp 2.2 framework — data literacy, communication, content creation, safety and problem-solving, with embedded GDPR and AI Act questions. The recurring traps (metadata vs telemetry, GDPR principles, AI Act tiers, IaaS/PaaS/SaaS), and three worked examples.