Last reviewed: 21 September 2026

Teaching English in Athens means working afternoons and evenings in a frontistirio in the northern or southern suburbs, not in the tourist centre. Academy pay runs roughly €850 to €1,150 gross a month, the working day is split, and the northern suburbs hold the highest concentration of well-paying academies.

Key takeaways

• Athens holds by far the largest number of frontistiria in Greece, spread across residential suburbs rather than the historic centre.
• The typical academy day runs from about 2pm to 9pm, with Saturday morning exam classes common.
• Pay is roughly €850 to €1,150 gross a month for a full academic-year contract, a little above the national range.
• The northern suburbs around Kifissia, Marousi and Chalandri concentrate the better-paying academies; the southern coastal strip and Piraeus carry steady volume.
• Rents have risen sharply since 2022, so where you live matters more to your budget than which academy you join.
• Business English in the office districts pays better per hour and is the main way Athens teachers lift their income.

Where are the teaching jobs in Athens?

Not where visitors imagine. Frontistiria follow families, so they cluster in the residential suburbs where children live, and the centre around Syntagma, Monastiraki and Plaka has comparatively few. The northern suburbs, running up the line from Ambelokipi through Chalandri and Marousi to Kifissia, hold the densest concentration of academies and generally the highest fees, which feeds into what they pay teachers. The southern coastal strip through Glyfada and Voula is the second cluster, with a similar profile. Piraeus and the western suburbs carry plenty of academies at a lower fee point.

Alongside the academies, Athens has the only real business English market in Greece. In-company classes for banking, shipping, pharmaceutical and technology employers run early morning and lunchtime in the office districts of Marousi, Kifissias Avenue and the centre, which fits neatly around an afternoon academy timetable.

What does the working day look like?

Split, and it takes getting used to. Greek children are in state school until early afternoon, so academy classes begin around 2pm and finish between 8pm and 9.30pm. A teacher who also takes morning business classes has two working blocks with a gap in between, and the Athens commute across that gap is the thing people underestimate. Saturday morning classes for exam groups are normal, particularly in the run-up to the December and May Cambridge sittings.

The upside is that mornings are genuinely free for most of the academic year, which is why so many Athens teachers combine academy work with online teaching, private tuition or study. The downside is that your social life runs on Greek hours whether you planned it that way or not.

Which district should you live in?

The practical answer is: near your academy, on the metro. Athens rents rose sharply from 2022 as short-term letting expanded, and the difference between a central one-bedroom and an equivalent flat two metro stops further out is now substantial. Teachers generally trade location for space.

Relative comparisons based on teacher and recruiter reports. Athens rents move quickly; check current listings before budgeting.

What does Athens actually pay?

Academy contracts in Athens generally sit at the upper end of the Greek range, roughly €850 to €1,150 gross a month for a full academic-year post, against a national statutory minimum of €920 gross since April 2026. The northern and southern suburban academies pay towards the top of that band, and experience with Cambridge C1 and C2 groups is the single factor that moves an offer most.

The city’s real advantage is the second income. Private tuition at €15 to €30 an hour and in-company business English at the upper end of that range are both easier to find in Athens than anywhere else in Greece. It is also worth knowing that from tax year 2026 Greek income tax is zero for workers up to 25 on the first €20,000, and 9 per cent on the €10,000 to €20,000 band for those aged 26 to 30, which lands squarely on teaching salaries. Our guide to English teacher salary in Greece works through the gross to net arithmetic in full.

How do you get hired in Athens?

The same way as everywhere else in Greece, only with more doors to knock on. Academy owners finalise enrolment in the last fortnight of August and hire immediately afterwards, so a targeted email round to named academies in one or two suburbs in the third week of August is the highest-yield approach. Because Athens is large, pick a corridor rather than the whole city: applying to twenty academies along the metro line you would actually commute on beats a scattergun across the basin.

Before you can start, you also need to be entered on the Ministry of Education teacher register, which is filed online through gov.gr and is free. Our requirements guide sets out the documents. On the practical side, the Embassy of Ireland in Athens is the reference point for citizen services while you are resident.

How does Athens compare with other European cities?

Athens sits at the affordable end of the EU market with the compensation of a genuinely large job pool and a long, warm shoulder season. Pay is below Prague and roughly level with Portugal’s academy market, and living costs outside the centre are lower than both. For direct comparisons, see our guides to teaching English in Prague, teaching English in Barcelona and English teaching jobs in Portugal, all of them markets Irish teachers can enter without a visa.

Frequently asked questions

Where this sits in our Greece guides

This is the Athens city guide. For the national picture start with our pillar guide to teaching English in Greece, then read who is hiring across the country. Every destination we cover is listed on the teach English jobs pillar page.

Ready to go?

Athens academies interview on the certificate and the exam experience behind it. Our accredited 120-hour TEFL course covers the baseline the city’s academies expect, and our Level 5 TEFL diploma is the stronger card for the northern suburb academies and in-company work. Both are studied online from Ireland at your own pace.

Sources: gov.gr, Register of teachers in schools, language centres and at home; Hellenic Ministry of Economy and Finance, income taxation tax guide; Embassy of Ireland, Athens.