We are back with fresh data on software developers salaries in Germany, one of our most beloved and debated topics among our readers. Leveraging insights from 2024 and building upon data from last year's report, we examine variables influencing hiring trends among developers.
Similar to 2023, this year's salary growth has adopted a more conservative trajectory. Following significant workforce reductions in previous years, 2024 has been marked by a persistent wave of layoffs since the beginning of the year. Notably, major tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have undertaken substantial cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, due to pandemic-related over-hiring, despite relatively low and stable inflation rates.
As a consequence of the current economic climate, developers' salary expectations have not undergone significant changes over the past 12 months, indicating that they anticipated a more substantial impact from financial and economic factors on their salaries.
In the paragraphs below, we’ll shed some light on how factors such as years of experience, role, location and language impact developers salaries.
Salary Breakdown
Role, years of experience, gender, and language proficiency all significantly influence developers' salaries.
In this report, we examine the roles of Backend developer, DevOps engineer, Frontend developer, Fullstack developer, and Tech Lead.
For the purpose of this analysis, we considered 0 to 2 years of experience as a junior level, 3 to 6 years of experience as a mid-level, while with 7+ years of experience, you’re considered a senior developer for the vast majority of companies.
Most in-demand tech roles
Looking at the number of interview invites sent for each role, Fullstack positions are in most demand, with 41% of the invites going their way—an increase of 10% compared to last year's data. Next most sought-after roles were Backend, Frontend and DevOps positions.
Salary by role and years of experience
Years of experience is a significant factor influencing the offered salaries, as companies evidently place high value on experience. The more senior or experienced an individual is, the higher the salary they are likely to receive. This correlation is quite logical.
Furthermore, historical data indicates that expected salaries tend to be lower than actual salaries offered by companies. This discrepancy between expected and offered salaries is smaller for developers with more than four years of experience, suggesting that more experienced developers have a better understanding of market expectations.
Interesting insights:
Consistent with last year’s report, DevOps roles exhibited the highest average offered salary for junior developers, showing a 9.3% growth.
Tech Lead roles experienced the highest salary growth with increased years of experience, showing a 24.5% increase from 3-4 years to 5-6 years.
Compared to 2023, the average salary for more experienced developers either stagnated or decreased marginally.
Salary by city
Similar to previous years, Berlin was the city that offered the highest salaries among other German cities, followed by Frankfurt. Developers in these two cities were offered on average 9% more than developers in the rest of Germany.
An interesting observation is that while developers in Berlin and Hamburg expect less and get more, developers in other big German cities, such as Munich and Frankfurt expect more and get a lower actual salary.
Does gender still play a role in determining salaries?
The short answer is yes, but perhaps not as significantly as one might expect. While the gender pay gap was around 4.7% in recent years, it has narrowed to a mere 1% over the past 12 months. However, this reduction does not necessarily stem from an increase in salaries for female developers, but rather because salaries for male developers have stagnated or slightly decreased.
Interestingly, while the average salaries of women are marginally lower than those of men, for very junior (0-2 years of experience) or very senior (9+ years of experience) positions, the offered salaries are 1% to 2% higher than those of their male counterparts.
From a salary expectation standpoint, women consistently anticipate lower salaries than men at nearly all experience levels. The exception is very senior experienced women, who expect slightly higher salaries than their male peers.
When examining salaries based on gender and specific positions, women in Backend and Fullstack roles tend to be paid either on par with or slightly more than their male counterparts. However, for DevOps, Frontend, and Tech Lead positions, women are paid less, with women in DevOps roles being offered on average 7.7% less.
Are location and languages spoken relevant factors in job interviews?
We examined the impact of talent location and language proficiency on the salaries offered. Our data indicated no significant differences in salaries offered to individuals located outside Germany or those who did not speak the local language.
However, these seemingly minor differences still uncover noteworthy trends. A deeper analysis reveals that, depending on the role, talents located outside of Germany (both inside and outside the EU) are offered in most cases lower salaries compared to those located in Germany and speaking the local language. This trend is particularly evident for Frontend and DevOps roles.
When considering years of experience, a clear and logical conclusion emerges: location and language proficiency are less relevant to the salary offered than experience. It is unsurprising that the more junior the developer, the more likely it is that local language skills will result in a higher salary.
Regarding demand based on interview invitations, our data shows that German speaking job seekers receive 2.3 times more interview invites than their counterparts who do not speak the local language.
Most in-demand tech stacks in Germany
As for companies' requirements for developers, the most sought-after skills are proficiency in JavaScript and Java. React.js stands out as the most in-demand JavaScript framework, with TypeScript also garnering significant attention. Additionally, positions requiring expertise in PHP, Python, and .NET attract a significant number of interview invitations.
Methodology
We used salaries specified by hiring companies during the interview process on the Honeypot platform as our key data source. Our 2024 data is an average of the last 12 months, to ensure accuracy given the year is not yet over. Expected salary data is determined from developer profiles on the Honeypot platform. Offered salary data is based on a company’s initial offer during the interview process, gathered on the Honeypot platform. It does not reflect the final negotiated and contracted amount.
We removed interview invites sent with missing information (like position title or company location) to ensure that the data can be compared consistently. Furthermore, we also removed salaries that were unusually low or high to get rid of any extreme outliers. An external library was used to determine gender based on the individual’s first name.
