Terms of employment

The employment terms of the UMC Utrecht are regulated via the Cao umc. On this page, you will find information on the Cao umc, our excellent opportunities for personal and professional development, the cao à la carte scheme, the travel expenses scheme and the personal budget.

Cao umc

The UMC Utrecht employs its staff in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for University Medical Centres (Cao umc). The salary scales are in the Cao appendices A up to and including G. The Cao content can be downloaded from the site of the NFU (Dutch federation of university medical centres).

Training and development

We expect from every employee that he continues to develop, not only in his field but also personally. You are not on your own in this. The UMC Utrecht will help you wherever it can:

• The UMC Utrecht Academy provides courses and further education
• The LEV portal for career development and vitality provides online courses, training and tests and an e-coach where you can ask questions about your sustainable employability.
• The internal coach pool provides coaching
• The Connecting Leaders program connects and directs all our executives
• In consultation with your supervisor you can also attend courses outside the UMC Utrecht

Commuting allowances

Travel allowance

As of 1 May 2026, all employees are entitled to a travel allowance of €0.21 per kilometre, up to a maximum of 40 kilometres one way. This means that you can receive reimbursement for a maximum of 80 kilometres per day when travelling by car or motorcycle. There is no maximum distance for employees who cycle to work.

You can supplement this amount through the Cao à la Carte commuting allowance scheme.

Public transport

You are entitled to full reimbursement of your public transport travel costs (2nd class), with no maximum distance.

If you regularly travel by public transport, you can apply for an NS Business Card once you start your employment. This means you do not have to pay for your public transport costs upfront or submit expense claims.

Working from home

For days on which you work from home, you receive the standard working-from-home allowance of €2.45 per day.

CAO à la carte

The UMC Utrecht has a number of arrangements, whereby the employee can choose extra employment terms in exchange for gross salary. There are Cao à la carte arrangements for commuting, purchase of a bicycle, and reimbursements for internet subscriptions and memberships. An overview can be downloaded below. Do you have questions about the arrangement? Please contact the P&O Service Centrum (poservicecentrum@umcutrecht.nl). 

ABP pension

• Employees of the UMC Utrecht have their pension with the ABP. All information on the pension arrangement can be found on the internet site of ABP.
• The amount of pension you can accrue taxfree is maximized. You can find the maximum on the page "nettopensioen" of ABP. If you earn above that amount, you can complement the accrual voluntarily with ABP or any other insurance company.
• New employees are registered at the ABP by the UMC Utrecht. In case you have a partner you are not married to, you have to register your partner at the ABP via the registration form for partners.

Transfer of pension benefits

Employees of the UMC Utrecht accrue pension benefits at ABP.  When changing jobs, employees can transfer their pension benefits to a different pension fund, called pension benefits transfer. You can effectuate transfer of pension benefits by logging in with your digid at English pages | ABP

Hours per week and leave

UMC Utrecht has a 36-hour working week. This means that a full-time employee works 1,872 hours per year.

Medical residents work 2,392 hours per year, based on a 46-hour working week. For academic medical specialists, different arrangements apply. Please refer to Chapter 15 of the Collective Labour Agreement for University Medical Centres (Cao UMC) for more information.

You will discuss with your manager how your working hours are distributed throughout the week.

Under the Cao UMC, a full-time employee (36 hours per week) is entitled to 180 hours of paid annual leave. You are also entitled to public holiday leave. Depending on whether public holidays fall on a weekend, this amounts to between 5 and 9 additional days off per year.

If you work as an on-call employee under a zero-hours contract, you are not entitled to paid roster-free days. Instead, you receive a monthly allowance of 13.75% of your gross salary to compensate for holidays and public holidays.

Leave arrangements

In addition to the statutory leave arrangements, we offer the following scheme under the Cao UMC:

Balance leave

You have the option to save up hours for additional leave. We call this balance leave. You can save up to 100 times your contractual working hours and use these hours later, in consultation with your manager.

Leave hours saved as balance leave do not expire.

Balance leave is intended to make it possible to temporarily work fewer hours or take a break from work at different stages of your career, with the aim of achieving a better work-life balance.