Berlin. Questions about salary are essential for employees: Who earns how much? How high can the claim be in the annual meeting? And when is it financially worthwhile to change jobs?
How much someone earns is a taboo topic in Germany. This is despite the fact that companies will have to state an average salary in job advertisements from June. So far, only around 16 percent of German employers have done this on the job platform Indeed. In Great Britain, however, it was recently around 70 percent and in France 35 percent.
According to a study by the Randstad personnel consultancy, money is the most frequently cited reason for changing employers. In order to create more transparency, the job platform Stepstone publishes its salary report every year - and uses 1.3 million salary data to compare which industries or professions Germans earn the most in. Read our analysis of the data to see how your salary compares to others - and whether it could perhaps be more.
Salary report 2026: These are the best-paid jobs
According to Stepstone, the gross median salary nationwide is 53,900 euros. This matches the figures from the Federal Statistical Office, which show around 52,200 euros. The median is the value at which there are an equal number of lower and higher paid jobs.
Doctors are at the top of the Stepstone rankings. Their median salary is over 100,000 euros. But engineers, IT specialists and development experts also earn significantly above average.
A position as a doctor in internal medicine (102,500 euros), as a department manager (80,500 euros) or as a development engineer (75,500 euros) is particularly lucrative.
IT specialists earn particularly well when they work in future-oriented fields. These include artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. Companies are currently primarily looking for cloud specialists, data analysts, AI specialists or cybersecurity experts, as a Handelsblatt survey recently showed.
According to Stepstone, IT specialists have a gross median salary of 66,750 euros. However, if you work in a highly complex area, you can expect much more. Salary data from the recruitment agency Robert Half shows that IT security consultants and IT security architects with the relevant experience earn a six-figure salary.
AI specialists can also expect a good income. According to the Federal Employment Agency, the median salary of an AI engineer or AI prompter is around 77,800 euros. The upper quartile, i.e. the top 25 percent, even receives more than 89,400 euros per year.
This is how much of an impact being a boss has on your salary
And leadership responsibility also pays off. More and more companies are promoting expert careers and remunerating them accordingly. This refers to career paths in which employees advance through their professional competence without taking on personnel responsibility. At an average of 62,000 euros, bosses earn around 21 percent more than employees without a managerial position.
One of the salary drivers is still a degree: academics earn a median of 68,250 euros. Employees without a university degree, on the other hand, earn an average of 51,200 euros. In the lower salary groups, training occupations such as dental assistant (41,500), office clerk (43,250 euros) and baker (39,750 euros) also dominate.
And yet the following applies: “Attractive salaries are possible even without a degree,” says Anna Wittich, labor market expert at Stepstone. “For example as a master craftsman, in technical professions, in industry or in sales.” A service technician, for example, earns above average at 56,250 euros, as does a car mechanic at 54,500 euros.
Industry, personnel responsibility and company size could significantly increase the salaries of non-academics, says Wittich. What is crucial, however, is the technical specialization. Anyone who continues their training and masters AI or digital tools significantly increases their market value – “regardless of their formal qualifications”.
Salary comparison 2026: These are the top industries
Basically, if you want to earn a lot, you have good opportunities in banking, aerospace or the insurance industry. According to Stepstone, employees earn the best there.
The banking industry pays the most. According to Stepstone, the gross median salary there is 70,250 euros – a good 30 percent above the average. At the lower end is the catering industry with 45,500 euros.
There are various reasons for the high salaries in banking and aerospace. There are many complex, safety-critical and highly regulated tasks in these industries, says Stepstone expert Wittich. This requires a high level of responsibility and highly qualified specialists who are also in demand internationally. That drives up salaries.
Wittich also sees the arms industry as a future industry. In the Stepstone evaluation, it is not yet one of the top payers. However, due to increasing spending on defense and infrastructure, Wittich expects very good employment and income prospects here in the future.
The guided missile company MBDA, for example, wants to increase the workforce at its Schrobenhausen location from 1,400 to 2,000 employees - and has already received around 10,000 applications for this. The defense company Rheinmetall, which is listed in the German leading index Dax, created 4,000 new jobs worldwide this year alone.
Suitable staff is scarce. That's why defense companies aren't just looking for people with experience in the industry. “Changers definitely have opportunities – especially if they come from technical sectors such as the automotive industry or aviation,” radar specialist Hensoldt recently said.
And Rheinmetall is also open to career changers. Promising applicants, said a spokesman, come primarily from manufacturing companies. These include, among others, vehicle and mechanical engineering, the chemical industry and aerospace.
Corporations pay so much more in salary
According to the Stepstone report, anyone who works in a company with more than 5,000 employees earns an average of 63,000 euros. In a small company with up to 50 employees, the median salary is only 48,800 euros.
This presents smaller companies with major challenges when recruiting skilled workers. However, they are not left behind, says Stepstone expert Wittich. “Salary is an important factor, but by no means the only one,” she says. Surveys by Stepstone show: In addition to income, factors such as working atmosphere, purpose, flexibility and compatibility are also among the most important criteria for employees.
These federal states have the highest salaries
Where you live also determines your income. According to Stepstone's evaluation, the city state of Hamburg is the front runner among the federal states. This is mainly because important large companies are based there that pay comparatively well - for example the aerospace company Airbus, large logistics companies like Hapag-Lloyd or trading groups like the Otto Group.
In Hesse, where the banking metropolis of Frankfurt is located, people also earn very well. The same applies to Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where some of the most important German medium-sized and industrial companies are based. The eastern German states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt are at the bottom. There is a total salary gap of around 15 percent between the median in the east and the median in the west.
According to Dennis Alexis Valin Dittrich, this east-west divide has several reasons. The economist researches this topic for Stepstone. He explains around half of the wage differences with factors such as economic structure, age structure of the workforce and unemployment rate. “Differences in industry mix, collective bargaining agreements and company sizes also play a role.”
Another reason for the remaining gap is brand awareness. “East German companies only gained access to the world market with reunification and were not able to monetize their brands and products as much as West German companies,” says Dittrich. The added value per capita in western Germany is therefore 20 percent higher than in the east.
Gender pay gap: Women continue to earn significantly less
Last but not least, gender still plays a role in determining how much someone earns. At a median of 50,500 euros, women receive significantly less than men (55,900 euros).
Outlook: This is how salaries will develop in 2026
Because the database is different every year, Stepstone's current evaluation cannot be compared with the figures from previous years.
However, figures from the personnel consultancy Kienbaum provide a rough trend: According to this, the salaries of employees in Germany rose by 2.9 percent in 2025 - and therefore less than expected. For 2026, Kienbaum's experts assume that salaries will increase by an average of 3.1 percent.
