Welcome to Honeypot’s 2023 salary report for Austria. Whether you’re a software developer considering your job options or a tech employer trying to stay competitive and hire the best talent, understanding the salary landscape is a critical first step. We’re building on data from previous years to offer you all the insight you need on the variables creating salary offers in Austria this year.
Over the past seven years, Austrian developers have weathered an intense dip in salaries, with an 18.7% drop between 2018 and 2019. However, recent years have seen average salaries increase, although they are still playing catch-up with the salaries offered in 2018 and earlier when the startup tech boom was at its highest. Nevertheless, we can reveal promising growth for Austrian software developers and a growing alignment between offered and expected salaries, suggesting a more informed workforce.
In this report, we examine the roles of backend developer, DevOps engineer, frontend developer, fullstack developer, and tech lead.
We specify 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 most companies.
Salary breakdown
Average developer salaries in Austria
The average offered salary for software developers in Austria in 2023 was €61,400, while the average expected salary was €64,300. How do these figures change based on an individual developer’s profile and experience?
A range of factors contribute to salary offers in Austria. Some of these, such as years of experience, are logical; others, like specific roles, may be more subject to the demands of the market.
Aligning with much of the DACH region, DevOps engineers receive higher salary offers than other roles, with the exception of leadership roles. Interestingly, unlike developers in other DACH locations, Austrian developers tend to have higher salary expectations than the average offer.
This could be seen in both positive and negative lights: on the one hand, inflated expectations may lead to disappointing offers. On the other hand, insisting on higher salaries over the past seven years may have gone some way to helping Austrian developers raise average salaries through negotiation and demand. This is particularly likely given that the greater disparities between expected and offered salaries show up within the senior developer category.
For example, a backend developer with 7-8 years of experience expects a salary 14.5% higher than the average offer, while a backend developer with only 0-2 years of experience actually expects 2.3% less than the average offer. This indicates that the inflated expectation could be a strategic move.
Most interview invites in Austria by role
DevOps, a growing and significant role that is the most in-demand for tech companies, is nevertheless new enough that it was easily beaten by the more classic tech roles.
Fullstack engineers received the lion’s share of interviews. In second place, backend developers, followed by frontend developes and DevOps engineers.
Fullstack developer 41%
Backend developer 30%
Frontend developer 18%
DevOps engineer 8.7%
Equal pay out of reach
The gender pay gap persists in Austria, with male developers paid on average 3.3% more than their female counterparts. This is particularly disappointing given the fact that female developers on average expect a higher salary than men, indicating that the disparity is not due to women being less likely to ask for more money.
Salary by language & location
There is a clear disparity between salary offers for developers who speak German and those who do not. German speakers may expect a salary up to 7.6% higher than those who do not speak German.
In this chart, red indicates that the salary expectation didn’t meet the final offer (blue).
Cost of capital city living reflected in salaries
Average developer salary by city
With its high cost of living and status as one of the more expensive cities in Europe, it’s unsurprising that Viennese salaries are considerably higher than in smaller cities like Graz. The average offered salary in Vienna is 20% higher than its Graz counterpart.
Smaller companies offer more
Average developer salary by company size
Both 2022 and 2023’s data indicate that smaller Austrian companies typically offer a higher average wage than a larger enterprise company of over 250 employees. We also found that the highest average salary is offered by the smallest companies: €65,700 for a company of under 9 employees. This indicates that many developers in Austria may want to consider networking and other opportunities to get in on a company from the ground up.
This could also mean that smaller companies, that can’t afford to have a bigger workforce, are targeting more experienced developers and are offering higher salaries in an effort to attract them.
Yes, you can download the FULL 2023 Developer Salary Report HERE.
Most in-demand tech stacks in Austria
Alongside understanding disparities in salary due to role, Honeypot can now reveal the most in-demand tech stacks in Austria.
Methodology
Our 2023 data is an average of 2022 and 2023 data to ensure accuracy given the year is not yet over. The data from this report is taken from figures given on the Honeypot platform. Expected salary data is determined from developer profiles, while offered salary data is based on a company’s initial offer during the interview process, not the final negotiated and contracted amount. We remove unusually low or high salaries to avoid extreme outliers, along with interview invites missing significant information like position, title, or company location to ensure consistent data comparison. An external library determines gender based on the individual’s first name.
