IT Salary Survey December 2021
An anonymous salary survey has been traditionally conducted annually since 2015 among European IT specialists with a stronger focus on Germany. This year we took a step further and narrowed down the survey to exclusively Germany. This decision is based on numerous economic factors (taxation, cost of living) throughout different European countries, which strongly affect local market salaries.
Disclaimer: the salary survey originated in 2015 in the Russian-speaking community and has been conducted every December for six years so far. The audience has expanded over time, but most respondents are still expatriates, so be aware of the various biases that may arise due to this fact.
The purpose of this survey is to learn a competitive value of a skillset for IT specialists depending on years of experience, position, language, etc. Below, you will find an in-depth comparative analysis of the aggregated anonymised responses from voluntary participants in Germany. You are welcome to explore the survey results' analytics in the articles from previous years.
This year 1208 respondents volunteered to participate in the survey. As always thanks to everyone participating, we hope you enjoy the reading.
The overall dynamics over 2015 – 2021
Although we restricted the location of the survey, the number of respondents didn't drop from the last year. In this analysis, "Salary" means gross annual salary in thousands of euros (shortened to k), including all taxes. After two years of stagnation, the median base salary (without bonuses and stocks) jumped to 75k. The line charts below show the evolution of the respondents' numbers and the overall base salary median from year to year.
Cities
Top cities by the number of respondents:
| City | Respondents |
|---|---|
| Berlin | 659 |
| Munich | 276 |
| Hamburg | 44 |
| Frankfurt | 33 |
| Stuttgart | 27 |
| Cologne | 25 |
Top large cities have seen a significant increase in the median base salary compared to the last year. Berlin: 70k -> 78k, Munich: 72k -> 78k, Hamburg: 64k -> 70k.
Work language
Almost a quarter of respondents use English and German languages at work.
Work language & City
60% of those interviewed from Berlin only use English at work. Pure German is spoken in all cities by less than 10%. In Stuttgart, around 40% use German in addition to English, while in Munich, English positions predominate, and less than 20% speak German additionally.
Annual leave in Germany - full-time employee
Thirty days of vacation is still the standard for full-time employees, supported by almost 50%, whereas last year only 45%.
Salaries
Employment status of the respondents:
Freelancers make up less than 2 percent of respondents - same as last year.
Median salaries (EUR/year) of IT specialists in Germany
Full-time employees & Founders
This year we consider 1154 answers from German full-time employees, including founders excluding freelancers (95% of all responses) versus 1082 answers last year. In the table, you will find the top positions mentioned by at least five respondents with the respective base salary medians and total compensation (base salary plus bonuses and stocks). The variety of positions and roles of respondents continues to expand compared to last year. 26% of respondents work as software engineers at different levels (from junior to principal), down from 34% last year. The median base salary for software engineers is 76k versus 75k the previous year. The median base salary for backend developers rose from 71k in 2020 to 74.5k in 2021.
Work experience
- 83% of respondents have a total of five years' experience or more (81% last year);
- 47% have a total of five to ten years of work experience.
- half of the respondents have worked in Germany for three years or less;
Salary by total years of experience
Look at how total work experience affects software engineers' (full-time and founders) annual TC (total compensation).
According to the respondents, software engineers usually start from 60k euros TC a year (45k for the last year). After six years, the TC trend approaches 80k, and the curve flattens out over the next few years. The 10-year mark is a milestone for a specialist, from which a second growth spurt up to 90k starts.
Only 11% of software engineers have a total of 15 or more years of work experience, so the median TC has high volatility after that point and becomes unreliable for assuming a TC trend. Almost the same trend shape was detected the last year, the only difference being that the current trend is shifted about 5k up the y-axis.
Seniority level
Salaries by seniority level (excluding freelancers)
The upper scatterplots show base salaries by total experience and seniority levels, the lower one - total compensation. The base salary median across all positions equals 75k (70k for the last two years), and the TC median is 80k (72k in the previous year).
The median salary without bonuses and stocks of all tech positions is 70k (the same as last year), with bonuses and stocks - 72k. The increased gap between the base salary and TC medians is due to significant growth of bonuses and stock's share in TC.
Total compensation breakdown
Indeed, almost half of respondents, commonly eligible for the stocks, have TCs consisting of 5% to 70% of bonuses and stocks.
- TC of 45% consists of solely base salary.
- TC of 41% also includes up to 20% bonuses and stocks in addition to base salary.
- The rest hold more than 20% of TC in bonuses and stocks.
Technologies
Main Technology
Shares of respondents by technologies
The most popular programming languages among the respondents are Python and Java (same as for the last three years), followed by JavaScript and PHP. Kotlin is seemed to be booming this year; it moved from the 9th in 2020 to the 5th position. The rest of the top technologies have not experienced much change during 2021.
Popular supplementary technologies
Docker, AWS, and SQL keeps the leading positions from the last year and seems to be the most common in addition to the primary working language/technology. Kubernetes jumped from the 6th to the 4th position. This year, Terraform appears on the list of supplementary technologies for the first time.
Salary (EUR/year) on Technology
The box plots represent base salary distributions of specialists in Germany by the most popular technologies & programming languages among respondents.
Python engineers' median annual base salary (light blue) is 72k (68k last year), while its distribution varies considerably from 40k to 120k. The annual base salary of a Java developer has a distribution centred around 80k (70k last year) with many deviations towards significantly higher salary values. Salary distribution for Clojure and Elixir are shifted towards higher numbers and stand out by the highest IQRs.
The same technology-based salary distributions plot for the total compensations of the respondents holding roles from Junior to Lead (excluding Principal / Staff / Head and C-level).
Base salaries and Total Compensation
Distribution of base salaries vs. total compensation
Based on 1203 answers this year and 1127 answers from the last year base salary median increased from 69k to 75k, total compensation median rose from 70k to 80k.
Salaries in Germany over 2015 – 2021
The insights of salary dynamics over the 2015 – 2019 period is described in the previous report here.
The brightest curve corresponds to the year 2021. The standard deviation increases every year due to a relatively broad sample of respondents. The distribution is shifted significantly to the right compared to previous years. That indeed evidences a noticeable salary increase on the market.
Total compensation distribution for 2021 is also significantly shifted to the right compared to 2020 and 2019.
| Annual compensation threshold | Base salary 2021 | Base salary 2020 | Total compensation 2021 | Total compensation 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| >= 80k | 43% | 28% | 52% | 35% |
| >= 90k | 23% | 15% | 35% | 21% |
| >= 100k | 13% | 7,5% | 24% | 12% |
Compare the percentage of respondents with permanent working contracts above the salary threshold for 2021 and 2020. 52% of respondents in 2021 have more than 80k TC versus 35% in 2020. Total compensation of almost a quoter of respondents was above 100k in 2021.
Total compensation in the most represented German cities
The TC distributions in Munich and Berlin have been almost aligned for the last three years. Frankfurt, with a median of 75k, is slightly behind, followed by Stuttgart (72k) and Cologne (70k).
Total compensation by Seniority level in Berlin and Munich
The pattern persists from the last two years, and total compensation in Berlin and Munich remain similar. Overall there are 2.3 times more respondents from Berlin than from Munich.
The most common TC of senior-level specialists varies between roughly the same range (70k-85k) and widely spreads to the right (to 125k-130k). The variability in the two cities for Leads is roughly coinciding. Middle-level specialists' TC in Munich generally starts from 65k, in Berlin from 55k.
65% (78.5% last year) of Senior-level compensations are concentrated between 60–100k in Berlin, 19% is above 100k. In Munich, 67% (74% last year) falls into this range, and 23% of Seniors' compensations are above 100k.
Freelancers
Twenty freelancers filled out the survey (1,7 %). Due to the small sample size, a thorough analysis is impossible. In general, there are two clusters by hourly rates and working hours. Some freelancers provide services occasionally during the year, another work as much as a full-time employee.
Impact of German degree and language skills on Salary
Almost 20% of respondents aqcuired a German degree and 30% speak German at work. In general, according to the respondents' answers, neither a German degree nor language skills are prerequisites for relatively higher compensation in the German IT market.
Credits
Thanks to Viktor Shcherban for conceiving the tradition of salary surveys since 2015 and publishing this analysis. The previous salary surveys datasets (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) and analyses can be found at asdcode.de.
Thanks to Sergey Vasilyev for collaboration on survey questions and article review.
