Barcelona vs London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin and Lisbon

1. Start with the operating brief

List the first roles, selling languages, buyer locations, travel needs and management responsibilities. Decide which work must happen together and which can happen remotely. A multilingual inside-sales team and a field-sales operation serving a concentrated set of enterprise buyers may need different bases.

Set non-negotiables before scoring: for example, support coverage, access to a particular talent pool or the ability to meet key buyers within a practical travel schedule. A city that fails a true requirement should not win because it scores well on lifestyle.

2. Compare six candidates through the same questions

Use these prompts to commission research. They do not assert measured differences between cities. For each shortlisted hub, ask recruiters for comparable role searches, finance for a fully loaded budget and sellers for a realistic customer travel plan.

What the available compensation evidence actually compares

Ravio’s national P3 direct-sales base benchmarks provide context for four countries in this shortlist. They are not city salaries or complete hub budgets. Ireland and Portugal are not covered by the cited country table; missing evidence is shown explicitly.

Source: Ravio: direct sales compensation, published 29 October 2025 (2026 report; 2025 observations)

Which hubs should you shortlist?

These are editorial recommendations based on the operating requirements below, not empirical city rankings. Do not treat a lower national salary reference as proof of a cheaper or better team.

Source: HubSpot: European headquarters launch announcement (2013)

3. Compare total cost, not a salary headline

Build the same team scenario for each city: identical role scope, seniority, headcount, variable-pay assumptions and planning horizon. Add employer costs, recruitment, workspace, travel, relocation where relevant, tools and specialist support. Compare in one currency using a dated exchange rate.

Eurostat publishes national labour-cost statistics. They are useful background but are not city-level SaaS salary benchmarks. Do not use a national whole-economy hourly figure to price an enterprise AE or to claim that a particular hub is a fixed percentage cheaper. Obtain role-specific and location-specific evidence.

Treat individual tax arrangements separately from company operating costs. Eligibility and personal circumstances vary; a personal tax outcome should not become an unsupported company savings claim. Ask advisers to assess your actual structure rather than scoring from a headline rate.

Source: Eurostat: hourly labour costs in 2024, published 28 March 2025

4. Use weights that reflect the business

Suggested starting weights, not a universal model: buyer access 35%, role-specific talent 30%, fully loaded cost 20%, operating coverage 10%, leadership practicality 5%. Score each factor from 1 to 5 only after writing down the evidence. Record confidence and collection date beside each score.

For costs, define in advance what each score means using your budget ceiling. For talent, use evidence from equivalent roles rather than overall population. Keep unverified fields empty and resolve them before approving the decision.

5. Stress-test the conclusion

Illustrative example using anonymous candidate hubs, not measured scores for the six cities: Hub A scores 4, 4, 3, 4, 5 across the five factors. Hub B scores 5, 3, 2, 4, 3. Weighted totals are 3.85 and 3.65 out of 5 respectively. Hub A leads under the starting assumptions.

Now change buyer access to 50% and talent to 15%, keeping the other weights unchanged. Hub A remains at 3.85; Hub B rises to 3.95. The winner changes. This is the point of sensitivity analysis: the choice depends on what the business values, not just which city receives the most enthusiastic recommendation.

If a small change in weights reverses the decision, gather better evidence on the decisive factors before making a long commitment. If both locations work, prefer the next step that is easier to test and reverse, subject to your actual contractual requirements.

6. Write a decision memo and revisit triggers

The final memo should name the chosen hub, the markets it will serve, the evidence collected, rejected alternatives and remaining risks. Assign an owner to each unresolved item. Specify what would trigger a review, such as failure to hire required roles or a major shift in customer geography.

Use the worksheet to make assumptions visible. Start with two or three serious candidates rather than commissioning a superficial comparison of every European city. A defensible choice is one another manager can reconstruct from the evidence.

Collect comparable quotes before calling a hub cheaper

Request the same hiring brief from recruiters in each shortlisted city: role level, languages, segment, quota, base, target variable and expected start date. Record collection dates and distinguish advertised ranges from accepted offers.

Ask payroll providers to cost those packages and office suppliers to quote the same number of seats, lease term, taxes and services. Until those inputs exist, mark cost comparisons as unknown. The national salary table cannot establish a full city operating budget.

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