The talent base

A foreign workforce

The AI laboratories and the financial institutions of Zurich draw on the same international labour market. At the end of 2025 the canton of Zurich had 1.63 million inhabitants, of whom about 472,000, or nearly 29 per cent, held a foreign passport.¹ The share is higher in the city and higher still in the research laboratories and trading floors, where teams routinely combine a dozen or more nationalities. Google alone reported staff from more than 80 countries at its Zurich campus, as noted above. For the financial centre, this international composition has been a feature since the arrival of foreign banks after the Second World War, which is described in Part C. What is new is the degree to which the most sought-after specialists in banking technology and data science compete with the offers of global technology companies.

Permits and quotas

The legal framework for this workforce differs sharply according to nationality. Citizens of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association benefit from the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons and require only a registration-based permit. Nationals of third countries can be admitted only as specialised and qualified workers, subject to the priority of domestic and EU/EFTA workers and to annual quotas. In the canton of Zurich the employer submits the application to the Office for Economic Affairs, which issues a preliminary labour-market decision. The State Secretariat for Migration must approve that decision before the cantonal Migration Office can grant the permit.²

For 2026 the Federal Council left the quotas unchanged. It set 8,500 permits for qualified workers from third countries, of which 4,500 are residence permits (B) and 4,000 short-term permits (L). A separate quota of 3,500 permits applies to nationals of the United Kingdom, whose access to the Swiss labour market after Brexit is governed by a special arrangement. The Federal Council justified its decision by the need for planning certainty in a period of uncertainty over American tariff policy and by the shortage of skilled workers. By 30 September 2025, 52 per cent of the third-country quota for that year had been used.³

The quotas are national and are distributed between the Confederation and the cantons, so that Zurich competes with Geneva, Basel and Zug for the same pool. In practice, the procedure is manageable for large employers with experienced mobility teams. It is a real obstacle for start-ups, which must demonstrate that no suitable candidate could be found in Switzerland or the EU. Because leading AI researchers often come from India, China, the United States or other third countries, the permit procedure is one of the few areas where Swiss law directly limits the growth of the AI cluster. Since the candidates concerned are usually highly qualified, the practical question for employers is often how long the process will take.

Salaries

Swiss salaries are among the highest in the world, and Zurich’s are higher than the Swiss average. According to the Swiss Earnings Structure Survey for 2024, the national median gross monthly wage for full-time employment was CHF 7,024, while the Zurich region led with a median of CHF 7,502. The median wage in banking reached CHF 10,723 a month. The survey also shows that in positions with high responsibility, holders of B permits earned more than Swiss nationals, with a median of CHF 13,090 against CHF 10,989. This reflects the concentration of foreign specialists in senior roles.⁴

At the top of the AI labour market, pay is set by global competition. Press reports on the competition for researchers between Meta, OpenAI, Google and Anthropic in 2025 mentioned offers of many millions of dollars for a small number of individuals. Reports on the Zurich market referred to annual packages of more than CHF 600,000 for experienced researchers at the frontier laboratories.⁵ Banks cannot and do not attempt to match these amounts for most roles. They compete by offering stable employment, a meaningful domain for applied AI and, in some cases, the prospect of leading a function that a technology company would treat as one team among many.

Housing

The greatest practical constraint on the talent base is housing. On 1 June 2026 the city of Zurich counted 252 vacant flats, a vacancy rate of 0.11 per cent of the housing stock. Although this was a slight increase on the 235 empty flats of the previous year, it remained, in the city’s words, at a low level. The city also reported that the asking rents for vacant flats had risen from about CHF 31 per square metre before 2024 to about CHF 40.⁶ The situation in the canton as a whole is only somewhat easier. In 2025 the cantonal vacancy rate fell to 0.48 per cent, the lowest value in more than twenty years, with about 3,800 empty dwellings.⁷

Existing tenancies are much cheaper than new ones, because Swiss tenancy law ties rent increases to reference interest rates and costs, and because non-profit cooperatives own a large share of the city’s stock. The city’s rent survey of 2024 gave a median net rent of CHF 1,578 a month for a three-room flat across all existing tenancies, with rents having risen by six to nine per cent between March 2022 and March 2024. The survey also found that the price ranges of cooperative and private flats generally do not overlap.⁸ For a newly arrived specialist, however, the relevant figure is the asking rent for a vacant flat, which is far higher than the median. Newcomers also compete with thousands of other applicants. Employers have responded by offering relocation services and temporary housing, but the shortage remains a cost that the Zurich AI cluster bears and that competing centres such as London or Munich bear in different forms.

English as a working language

Language is a lesser obstacle. English has become a normal working language in the research laboratories, the large banks and the insurance groups of Zurich. A statistical analysis by the city based on the 2010 structural survey found that one in three employed residents used English at work, rising to more than half among managers.⁹ By 2024 the city’s head of integration promotion put the share at about 40 per cent of residents. Of the roughly 136,000 people using English at work, about 90,000 were not native speakers, and among academics and managers the share reached around 70 per cent.¹⁰

For the legal system, English as a working language has limits. Court proceedings in the canton are conducted in German, although the revised Civil Procedure Code allows cantons to admit English in certain commercial proceedings.¹¹ The federal statutes and the decisions of FINMA remain in the official languages. Contracts, internal policies and AI governance frameworks in Zurich institutions are, however, increasingly drafted in English from the start. This eases the integration of foreign staff and the use of AI tools trained predominantly on English text.

Notes

1. Kanton Zürich, Statistisches Amt, “Bestand und Struktur der Bevölkerung”, figures as at 31 December 2025, https://www.zh.ch/de/soziales/bevoelkerungszahlen/bestand-struktur.html. ↩
2. Kanton Zürich, “Aufenthalt mit Erwerbstätigkeit für Drittstaatsangehörige”, https://www.zh.ch/de/migration-integration/aufenthalt/aufenthalt-mit-erwerbstaetigkeit-fuer-drittstaatsangehoerige.html (accessed September 2026). ↩
3. Swiss Federal Council, “Bundesrat legt unveränderte Drittstaatenkontingente für 2026 fest”, 19 November 2025, https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/7HwBjdg5HpBA. A further 3,500 permits are reserved for service providers from EU/EFTA states working in Switzerland for more than 120 days a year. ↩
4. Swiss Federal Statistical Office, press release “2024 lag der Medianlohn bei 7024 Franken brutto”, 25 November 2025, https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/CzozNgBTCJOrNyvwsItyp. ↩
5. The Swiss Insider, “Inside story: Zurich and the tech giants”, 21 April 2026, https://theswissinsider.substack.com/p/inside-story-zurich-and-the-tech, which cites media reports of offers of CHF 600,000 and more a year to top AI talent in Zurich. ↩
6. Stadt Zürich, “Leichter Anstieg: 252 Leerwohnungen in Zürich”, press release, August 2026, https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/de/aktuell/medienmitteilungen/2026/08/leichter-anstieg-252-leerwohnungen-in-zuerich.html. ↩
7. Kanton Zürich, “Leerwohnungsziffer fällt unter 0,5 Prozent”, 14 August 2025, https://www.zh.ch/de/news-uebersicht/medienmitteilungen/2025/08/leerwohnungsziffer-faellt-unter-0-5-prozent.html. ↩
8. Stadt Zürich, Statistik, “Mietpreise 2024 in der Stadt Zürich”, https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/artikel/de/statistik-und-daten/mietpreise-2024-in-der-stadt-zuerich.html. ↩
9. Stadt Zürich, Statistik, “Arbeitssprache. Working language. Langue de travail.”, https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/artikel/de/statistik-und-daten/arbeitssprache-working-language-langue-de-travail.html. ↩
10. IamExpat, “40 percent of people in Zurich now speak English at work”, 5 August 2024, https://www.iamexpat.ch/career/employment-news/40-percent-people-zurich-now-speak-english-work, reporting statements by Christof Meier of the City of Zurich. ↩
11. Bär & Karrer, “The Use of English in Swiss Civil Proceedings”, Legal Insight, 23 January 2025, https://www.baerkarrer.ch/de/publications/the-use-of-english-in-swiss-civil-proceedings: Art. 129 para. 2 lit. b of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (SR 272), as revised with effect from 1 January 2025, allows English in international commercial disputes before a commercial or ordinary court if cantonal law provides a basis and all parties request it. Zurich’s implementing rule was proposed as § 129a of the draft Courts Organisation Act (E-GOG) of 9 September 2024. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.