How much do software developers typically earn in Germany?
Software company JetBrains recently revised its IT salary calculator which shows salary ranges for developers depending where they live and which programming language they can use.
According to the company's State of Developer Ecosystem Survey 2024, which polled 23,000 developers worldwide, Germany ranks fourth in the world for the highest median salaries for developers.
The median salary for tech developers in Germany was $75,200, or around €72,000 at the time of writing. (JetBrains gave its salary figures in US dollars, which have been converted here. At time of writing one US dollar is worth about 0.96 euro.)
Developers in Germany earn just a bit less than those in Canada and the UK, according to JetBrains' survey, and about half as much as those in the US.
Germany's median salary came in just above the average for the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) and Northern Europe (at $68,300 or about €66,000), while it is significantly higher than Central Europe ($59,500 or about €57,000) as well as France ($51,500 or about €49,500).
So how much do developers earn in Germany?
Salary scales for developers can be very large, with the number of years of working experience and the programming language(s) used being among the main factors that determine an initial offer.
On the upper end of the spectrum would be a JavaScript/TypeScript developer with over 16 years of coding experience, for example. Someone fitting this description could earn up to $223,000 annually at a full-time job in Germany - around €215,000.
But you can't expect to earn that much at your first job. A first year developer with proficiency in the same coding language would likely earn around $43,000 (€41,430)
Even for candidates with similar levels of experience, working with the same programming languages, there are sharp differences between the lowest and highest salaries.
Developers with six to 10 years of programming experience in Germany generally earn anywhere between $35,000 and $150,000 (€33,600 - €144,200) annually - with the majority earning somewhere between $60,000 to $90,000 (€57,700 - €86,500).
Salary ranges are similarly diverse for other coding languages as well.
Developers with six to ten years of Python coding experience, for example, earn between $39,000 and $134,000 (€37,500 - €128,800). Those with just one to two years of HTML/CSS experience earn anywhere from $36,000 to $86,000 (€34,600 - €82,700).
If you'd like to try the developers salary calculator for yourself, you can find it here.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that developers and similar IT and tech roles are among some of the higher paying jobs in Germany – as they are in much of the world.
The job platform Stepstone reported that doctors have the highest median salaries in Germany, but with a median income of €98,750, some of the high-paid developers earn as much or more.
But even for those who are pretty far from being paid like a doctor, most developers will earn enough to live quite comfortably in Germany.
Median salaries in the German states range from €39,500 to €52,000. So developers at the lower end of the pay scale will earn at least a median salary for Germany, and can expect that number to rise as they gain experience.
Also, with the this year, most full-time developers have a pretty good shot at qualifying for that.
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