Passing an EPSO competition puts you on a reserve list, and any EU institution can recruit from it. So “which institution?” is a real question: the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council, the External Action Service, the two Courts in Luxembourg and more than 30 agencies all employ EU officials, on the same salary grid but in very different jobs. This guide compares them — the work, the city, the profiles each one hires and how it recruits — and ends with five questions to help you choose.
The EU employers at a glance
| Employer | Where staff work | What officials do | Profiles in demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| European Commission | Brussels, Luxembourg, Joint Research Centre sites, a representation in every EU capital | Draft legislation, run EU programmes and funding, enforce EU law, negotiate trade | Generalist administrators, economists, lawyers, IT, auditors, translators, scientists |
| European Parliament | Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg | Support committees and plenary, legislative and budget work, interpretation, communication | Administrators, lawyers, translators and interpreters, communication staff |
| Council (General Secretariat) | Brussels | Prepare and support negotiations between national ministers and EU leaders | Administrators, lawyers, translators |
| European External Action Service | Brussels and more than 140 EU delegations worldwide | Foreign and security policy, diplomacy, running delegations | Administrators with an international profile, plus seconded national diplomats |
| Court of Justice of the EU | Luxembourg | Legal work for the Court of Justice and the General Court, legal translation | Lawyers, lawyer-linguists |
| European Court of Auditors | Luxembourg | Audit the EU’s accounts and spending | Auditors, economists |
| EESC and Committee of the Regions | Brussels | Support the two advisory committees; they share their translation and logistics services | Administrators, translators |
| Ombudsman and EDPS | Strasbourg and Brussels; Brussels | Inquiries into maladministration; data-protection supervision | Lawyers, data-protection and IT specialists |
| EU agencies | More than 20 cities across the EU | Specialist work: medicines, food safety, aviation, borders, chemicals, banking supervision and more | Scientists, engineers, regulators, IT; mostly on temporary or contract-agent posts |
European Commission: the biggest employer
With about 32,000 staff, the Commission employs more people than any other EU institution. Most work in one of its directorates-general in Brussels or Luxembourg, each covering a policy area: competition, trade, agriculture, climate, the internal market, and so on. An AD5 administrator there might draft part of a legislative proposal, manage grants under an EU programme, check whether a member state applies EU law correctly or prepare a briefing for a Commissioner.
The Commission suits candidates who want to work on policy and to change fields over a career: moving between directorates-general is common, and the range of jobs is the widest. It also has posts outside Brussels: the Joint Research Centre’s sites in Ispra, Geel, Karlsruhe, Petten and Seville, and a representation in every EU capital.
European Parliament: legislation in the open
The Parliament’s secretariat works in Brussels and Luxembourg and follows the Members to Strasbourg for the twelve plenary sessions a year. Officials support the committees that amend legislation, draft briefings, organise hearings, manage the budget procedure, and run one of the largest translation and interpretation services in the world. The work is visibly political, close to elected Members, and the calendar is set by the plenary weeks.
Not everyone at the Parliament comes through EPSO: the political groups and the Members’ offices hire their own staff, on contracts linked to the parliamentary term.
Council of the EU: where member states negotiate
The General Secretariat of the Council, in Brussels, supports both the Council of the EU (national ministers) and the European Council (heads of state or government). Officials prepare meetings, draft compromise texts, advise the rotating presidency and keep negotiations moving. It is a smaller institution than the Commission, the work is closer to diplomacy than to programme management, and discretion is part of the job.
European External Action Service: the EU’s diplomatic service
The EEAS runs the EU’s foreign and security policy from Brussels and through more than 140 delegations around the world. Its staff mixes EU officials with diplomats seconded from the member states. A career there usually means rotating between headquarters and postings abroad, with a duty station that changes every few years — attractive if you want to live abroad, harder to combine with a partner’s career.
The Courts in Luxembourg
The Court of Justice of the European Union — the Court of Justice and the General Court — is the main employer of lawyers and of lawyer-linguists, who translate judgments and legal documents into their mother tongue. The Court works internally in French, so French matters more there than anywhere else. Read the guides to the lawyer-linguists competition for the Court and to the AD/433/26 lawyers competition.
The European Court of Auditors checks how EU money is collected and spent. Its auditors travel to member states and beneficiaries for on-the-spot checks, and its reports are public. The AD7 audit competition is the usual way in.
The agencies: specialist jobs across Europe
More than 30 decentralised agencies work in cities from Lisbon to Helsinki: the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam, the European Food Safety Authority in Parma, the Aviation Safety Agency in Cologne, Frontex in Warsaw, the Chemicals Agency in Helsinki and many more. The map of the EU institutions and agencies shows where each one is.
Agencies are the place for technical expertise, and they recruit differently: most staff are temporary agents or contract agents selected by the agency itself, without an EPSO competition. Pay follows the same grid, adjusted for the cost of living in the agency’s country (see EU salary by city). The routes in are explained in how to work for the EU without an EPSO competition.
Two EU bodies stand apart: the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg have their own staff rules, salaries and recruitment, and do not use EPSO reserve lists.
Do you get to choose?
Partly. EPSO’s generalist competitions, such as AD5, recruit for all the institutions at once: they search the same reserve list and contact the candidates whose profile fits a post. You can, and should, help them find you: look for vacancies addressed to reserve-list candidates, contact the units you are interested in, and say yes to interviews (the guide from reserve list to job offer covers the steps). Some specialist competitions are organised for one institution only, so choosing the competition is already choosing the employer.
Your first institution is not a life sentence. Once you are an official, you can apply for posts in other institutions, and moving between them later in a career is common.
Five questions to help you choose
- What kind of work do you want? Designing and managing policy points to the Commission; legislation and politics to the Parliament or the Council; law to the Court of Justice; audit to the Court of Auditors; diplomacy to the EEAS; technical expertise to an agency.
- Where do you want to live? Brussels has most of the posts. Luxembourg means the Courts, the Court of Auditors and part of the Commission and Parliament. The agencies are the way to work for the EU in another city. Pay is adjusted to each country’s cost of living.
- Which languages do you use? English dominates most of the institutions, French matters at the Court of Justice, and translation and interpretation posts depend on your main language.
- Do you want to move around? The EEAS builds rotation into the career; the Commission makes moving between fields easy; an agency is often the only EU employer in its city.
- Which contract can you accept? Institutions recruit officials from EPSO reserve lists; the agencies offer mostly temporary contracts, often renewable. The guide AD vs AST vs CAST compares the contracts.
See who is hiring now
The EU jobs board lists open vacancies at the EU institutions and agencies, sorted by deadline, with a separate tab for EPSO’s CAST calls. The five closing soonest are free.
See open EU vacancies → Or explore the map of the institutions · calculate a salaryFrequently asked questions
Which EU institution employs the most people?
The European Commission, with about 32,000 staff, mostly in Brussels and Luxembourg. It recruits administrators, assistants and specialists in almost every field.
Can I choose which institution I work for after an EPSO competition?
Partly. In generalist competitions such as AD5, every institution can search the reserve list and offer you a post. You can apply for vacancies addressed to reserve-list candidates and contact units directly, but the institution decides whom it recruits.
Do EU agencies recruit through EPSO?
Mostly not. The decentralised agencies select most of their staff themselves, as temporary agents or contract agents, through their own selection procedures. Some posts use EPSO reserve lists or CAST Permanent.
Is the salary the same in every EU institution?
Yes for the institutions and agencies covered by the EU Staff Regulations: the same grade and step pay the same basic salary, adjusted by the correction coefficient of the country where you work. The European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank have their own salary systems.
Which language do I need in the EU institutions?
English is the most common working language in most institutions, and French is the working language of the Court of Justice. EPSO competitions require at least two EU languages, and translators and interpreters work into their main language from several others.
Can I move to another institution later?
Yes. Once you are an official, you can apply for vacancies in other institutions, and many officials change institution during their career.
Staff figures are approximate, as on 30 October 2026; each institution’s own careers page has the current ones.