Berlin. What do you have to do to become a top earner in Germany? The answer is: As a rule, you should take personnel responsibility for this. More and more companies are also promoting specialist careers and attracting experts with higher salaries than before.
However, an evaluation by the Stepstone job platform shows that someone who leads a small team of up to four employees has more than twice the chance of earning a six-figure salary as someone without management responsibility.
But in which areas do managers earn the most? And how do location, company size or professional experience affect the salaries of people with human resources responsibility? Stepstone analyzed this exclusively for Handelsblatt.
The evaluation is based on around 1.3 million salary data that employees submitted on the platform from 2022 to 2026. For the evaluation, Stepstone only took into account the salaries of people with personnel responsibility. The platform shows salaries as the median gross annual salary. This is the value at which there are as many lower paid jobs as better paid jobs.
If you want to earn a lot, you have good chances, especially at a bank, an insurance company or in the IT industry. According to Stepstone's analysis, bosses earn the most in these areas. Salaries are highest at banks. The median salary here is 96,000 euros. In hotels or restaurants, on the other hand, managers earn a median of only 50,000 euros - a little more than half of the salary in a bank.
Depending on the position in which an executive works at a bank, it can cost significantly more than 96,000 euros. A Chief Technology Officer earns a median of around 143,000 euros. When heading a legal department, the median salary is 132,500 euros.
When it comes to insurance, the median for executives is 88,500 euros. And for IT companies at 85,250 euros. “Several factors come together in these industries,” says Christina Langer, labor market expert at Stepstone. “High productivity and added value per capita, plus special regulatory and technological requirements.”
Managers in these industries often have to have years of study or special specialist knowledge. The companies in question are looking for highly specialized specialists who are also in demand internationally. This is reflected in the salaries. “Anyone who leads a team in such an environment is usually responsible for larger budgets, more complex processes and higher risks than in less regulated industries,” says Langer.
According to Stepstone, the nationwide median for employees with personnel responsibility is 64,000 euros. This value includes both top salaries and comparatively low-paid management positions. For example, canteen managers or bar managers only earn a median of around 45,000 euros.
Instead, chief physicians, for example, receive a particularly high salary. The median is 221,500 euros. According to Stepstone, heads of departments such as treasury, asset management or innovation management as well as chief technology officers and chief product officers also earn very well, although less than doctors.
However, companies are currently cutting many jobs, especially in middle management, and are often no longer willing to pay high salaries. A development that Anna Lüttgen, head of recruiting at the personnel service provider Hays, is also observing. “In the public perception, managers from middle and upper management are usually seen as waterheads at corporate headquarters that are now being dismantled,” she says.
Lüttgen therefore advises managers not to refer to their previous hierarchical position in salary negotiations. Rather, they should highlight the performance of their area and their own effectiveness as a manager. “I drove forward the restructuring with my team” is currently a stronger argument than: “I managed 80 employees.” It is also important that candidates highlight their experiences with transformations and show that they can use AI in a targeted manner.
The size of the company also has a significant influence on the salary of managers. For example, someone in a management position in a small company with up to 50 employees earns a median of 57,000 euros. For a group with more than 5,000 employees, the median salary rises to 72,750 euros gross per year.
Here too, salaries differ significantly depending on position. According to Stepstone, a sales manager in a company with up to 50 employees already earns a median of 81,500 euros. For a group the value is more than 115,000 euros.
Just like the size of the company, the size of the team also plays a role in the salary level. Anyone who leads a team with up to four employees earns a median of 58,750 euros. With a team size of more than 100 people, the median salary rises to 87,250 euros.
According to Stepstone data, managers earn particularly well in Hamburg. The median salary there is 71,750 euros. One reason for this is that numerous large companies with comparatively high salaries are based in the Hanseatic city, including the aerospace group Airbus, large logistics companies such as Hapag-Lloyd and trading groups such as the Otto Group. In Hesse, where the banking metropolis Frankfurt is also located, median salaries are also comparatively high.
In contrast, the eastern German states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt are at the bottom. According to Stepstone, managers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania only earn a median of 55,000 euros. For comparison: According to the State Office for Internal Administration, the average salary there is 36,830 euros.
According to expert Anna Lüttgen, salaries are currently rising more moderately than in the years 2022 to 2024. Last year, according to her, the average salary increase was only around two percent. “The economic situation limits the salary scope for managers,” she says.
Christina Langer, labor market researcher at Stepstone, also observes that the strong salary increases of recent years are easing. “Inflation has normalized, many companies are in austerity mode, and that is also dampening the salary dynamics for executives.”
Langer assumes that this development will initially continue. On the one hand, companies are also feeling the consequences of demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers in their management functions. “That speaks more for increasing salaries,” she says.
