I'm an EU citizen looking to get a Master's Degree in AI/ML in Europe. I'm soon to graduate as a software engineer (outside the EU), and I'm currently researching universities to apply to. I am a native Spanish speaker, have certified proficiency in English, and a B2 in French.

The UK is out of consideration, unfortunately, since Brexit measures make it so I would have to pay a full international fee (£25k), which is not within my reach.

As for other countries, I've been mainly focusing my research on The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. All of these countries have plenty of masters' in English, relevant to the field I would like to study, and cheap (or often non-existent) tuition fees.

However, I'm worried about academic difficulty and workloads. It's pretty much unavoidable that I would have to work part-time during my studies, which makes me worried about being able to deal with the requirements of demanding universities.

I've heard that German universities are very tough, and most people take 3-4 years to complete a Master's Degree. I've heard conflicting accounts on Dutch universities: some say they're more demanding than other European unis, some say that the culture is less performance-focused. On the Nordic Countries, there doesn't seem to be much info, but they do have the advantages of having 0 tuition, and guaranteed free accommodation. Does anyone here have any info on how hard it is to do a Master's in any of those/any other European country?

On a last note - how feasible is it to work full time for about a year before starting my studies, in order to save up enough money to get by two years without working? I see starting salaries for software developers can be 3500 EUR in the Nordic Countries. With about 1000 EUR of expenses a month, that means I could save up around 25k-30k EUR in a year, which, in addition to a few thousand EUR I have saved up, maybe could get me through uni, given that tuition is free there. Is this a fantasy?

Thanks for any advice.