How much does a teacher earn abroad?

Salaries range from $25,000 to $100,000+ depending on region, experience, and school. Wondering Staffroom helps you compare real-world teacher packages anonymously.

What’s included in a typical international teaching package?

Common benefits include housing allowance, flights, health insurance, and tax-free salary. Use our comparison tool to see real examples.

Compare International Teacher Salaries & Teaching Packages

In international education, the official curriculum is only half the story. Beneath the glossy brochures, sun-soaked recruitment videos, and polished school websites lies a hidden curriculum — one that shapes teacher wellbeing, career trajectories, and financial futures. It’s the unwritten syllabus of international teaching: salary packages, housing allowances, family support, tax complications, and cultural realities that rarely get discussed openly.

And that lack of transparency? It’s a problem.

A Global Market of Unknowns

For teachers considering the leap overseas, the decision can feel thrilling — but also overwhelming. Offers arrive that mention competitive packages, generous benefits, or "cost of living adjustments." But rarely are these terms defined. What is competitive in São Paulo? Is a housing allowance in Dubai enough to actually rent anything near the school? What does a "dependent allowance" mean in Kuala Lumpur — and does it even exist?

The answers vary dramatically — not just between countries, but within them. A British curriculum school in Shanghai may offer $10,000 more annually than its neighbour across town. In Abu Dhabi, some schools pay full tuition for dependents; others offer partial coverage or none at all. These details can make or break the viability of a move.

Yet teachers often enter contracts based on incomplete information, personal anecdotes, or recruitment narratives designed to sell — not inform.

The Pay Gap You Don’t See

International teaching is marketed as a financially rewarding career path. For some, it absolutely is. But access to those high-value contracts is shaped by a mix of timing, negotiation skills, gender, nationality, and — crucially — knowledge.

Anecdotally and increasingly on platforms like Reddit, teachers report discovering later that colleagues in the same school have wildly different packages, depending on when they were hired or where they're from. Without transparency, such discrepancies stay hidden, and teachers are left guessing: Could I have asked for more? Should I have waited? Am I being underpaid?

Transparency Builds Equity

At The Wondering Staffroom, we believe information shouldn't be a privilege. Our platform was created with one goal: to allow international teachers to compare salary packages across schools, regions, and roles — with real data from real people.

But transparency is more than just salary tables. It’s about context:

- How many years of experience did the teacher have?
- What curriculum was being taught?
- Was the school for-profit or not-for-profit?
- Did the salary include housing? Flights? Health insurance?
- Was the teacher supporting dependents?

These are the details that shift a job from ideal to impossible. Our submission form and analytics tools aim to surface these complexities so educators can make truly informed decisions.

The Regional Puzzle

Understanding education in Dubai means something very different from understanding it in Jakarta or Rome. Even within the same city, packages can differ dramatically — not always because of school quality, but due to business models, leadership philosophy, or fluctuating market demand.

Here’s where transparency becomes powerful: by zooming in. We’ve built the ability to browse submissions by city, school, and even job title, because meaningful comparisons depend on specificity. A teacher looking for a move to Bangkok doesn’t need a generic global salary average — they need to know what’s typical in their subject, in their sector, right now.

A Community Effort

This platform only works because international teachers contribute to it. Each new submission makes the dataset richer. Each flagged post helps improve reliability. The salary you share today might help another teacher tomorrow make a life-changing decision with clarity, not guesswork.

We’re not backed by a corporate sponsor or tied to any recruitment agency. This is grassroots transparency, fuelled by people who’ve worked across continents and understand just how different reality can be from expectation.

Start Exploring

🔍 Browse salary packages by school and region

📊 Analyse salary trends and averages

✍️ Submit your own package anonymously

And for the latest updates, join the conversation on Twitter @WonderingSRoom.

Let’s shine a light on the hidden curriculum — together.