Every year, the salary comparison website Gehalt.de releases its Salary Atlas (Gehaltsatlas), which gives a detailed analysis of salaries in Germany across numerous jobs, industries and locations. This year, Gehalt.de has worked with Stepstone to combine their findings and publish the Salary Report 2022.
This year, Gehalt.de and recruitment platform Stepstone have combined their databases to jointly publish the Salary Report 2022. Much like Gehalt.de’s Salary Atlas, the report provides a detailed overview of salaries in Germany, and demonstrates how occupation, location, industry and education affects employees’ salaries in Germany.
The 2022 Salary Report analysed over 600.000 data points on different salaries across a wide range of jobs, differing in terms of their industry, region, city and required experience. The data was collected between 2019 and 2021 and reviewed by experts over the past 12 months. Overall, 64 percent of the data came from male employees and 36 percent came from female employees.
The gross average salary in Germany across all jobs is around 51.010 euros, while the median is 44.070 euros.
Doctors are, once again, Germany’s best-paid professionals, raking in an average of 92.597 euros per year. They are followed by engineers and IT professionals, who have become increasingly important over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Other important business roles, such as corporate consultants and human resource employees, round off the top five. The jobs have been ranked by median income (followed by the average income for each job in brackets).
It should come as no surprise that several of Germany’s most in-demand industries of 2021 feature in this year’s ranking. Many of these industries have experienced high demand for their services over the past year, particularly the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, which have been spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent scramble for the manufacture and distribution of vaccines.
On the other side of the spectrum, where employees are offered the least compensation for their work, we have industries that have been adversely affected by the pandemic. While these are mostly made up of different aspects of the retail sector, hotels, restaurants and call centres have also all been affected by the pandemic – something which is reflected in the rankings. The lowest-paid industries in Germany are:
As one would probably expect, there is a significant wage gap between the western and eastern federal states. The top five states in terms of median salary are all former West German states. Employees in Germany’s western states earn an average salary of 42.290 euros, a good 22 percent more than the average salary in the eastern states (35.420 euros).
In contrast, the states where employees earn the least are all in eastern Germany.
It probably comes as no surprise that the most lucrative state capitals generally match up with the most lucrative states. While it is Munich that comes out on top in this list, the state capitals for Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia also make the top five, as does the city-state of Hamburg.
The Salary Report also looked at the salaries of those who had achieved an academic degree, as well as at the salaries of those without an academic degree. Of those with an academic degree, doctors made the most money.
Finance also proved to be a lucrative industry for employees who had not obtained an academic degree.