The Article was originally published on .cult by Melina Zacharia And Ines Almeida. .Cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career, make original documentaries and share tons of other untold developer stories from around the world.
It’s that time again: the annual honeypot breakdown of software developer salaries in Germany. We build on the data we shared 2022 And 2021 with new insights coming in 2023 that give you the insights you need to make informed decisions around your pay options.
2023 was a more conservative growth year, but growth is continuing. Our seven-year average salary picture shows the shifts and changes that software developer salaries have experienced as a result of pandemics, hiring booms and looming recessions.
Last year was predicted to be a difficult financial time and while a European recession may have been avoided, developer salary growth has slowed accordingly. The average salary on offer has risen just 1.5% since 2022, compared to a 4.3% increase from 2021-2022.
But it’s still more than many software developers might expect, and the gap between expected and offered salaries is widening. In 2023, the difference between expected and offered salary is 3.8%, the largest since 2018 (with a difference of 5.6%). It also clearly shows that developers need to better understand the variables affecting their salaries in order to better position them when seeking and negotiating competitive offers.
Salary growth compared to the inflation rate in Germany
In 2023 and 2022, inflation rates in Europe skyrocketed. What does this mean for “real” salary growth?
According to the Federal Statistical Office of the Federal Republic of GermanyInflation in 2023 is 8.3%. That means a mere 1.5% increase in average software developer salaries doesn’t represent significant growth. Amid rising inflation rates and the ongoing tech crisis, the 1.5% increase means demand for developer jobs remains high.
Average developer salaries in Germany
Role, work experience, gender and – crucially in 2023 – language skills all influenced salary.
In this report, we examine the roles of backend developers, DevOps engineers, frontend developers, fullstack developers, and technical leads.
We indicate 0 to 2 years of experience as a junior developer and 3 to 6 years of experience as a mid-level developer, while with 7+ years of experience you are considered a senior developer for most companies.
In this chart, green means that the salary offered was higher than the salary expected, while red indicates that the expectations were higher than the company’s offer.
Key findings include:
- DevOps roles saw the highest average salary offered for junior developers: a 9.3% growth
- Backend roles saw the highest salary growth with years of experience: 13.2% growth from 1-2 years to 3-4 years
- Frontend roles saw 11.2% growth
As we have noted over the past few years, expected salaries tend to be consistently lower than salaries offered.
It is interesting to note that developers in senior positions (4+ years) have a better understanding of the market’s salary benchmarks. While junior and entry-level developers consistently expect less.
Most interview invitations in Germany by role
Based on the number of interview invites for each role, backend developers were the most in-demand on the Honeypot platform, followed by fullstack developers, frontend developers, and DevOps engineers. More accurate:
- Backend developer 35%
- Full stack developers 31%
- Frontend developer 24.7%
- DevOps Engineer 7.4%
The gender pay gap has widened again
For the second year in a row, the gender pay gap between male and female developers has widened. This was particularly noticeable in junior positions in 2023, where men were paid up to 8.6% more than women.
From 2021 to 2022, the average salary offered was €69,600 for men and €66,500 for women: a difference of 4.6%. From 2022 to 2023, the average salary on offer is €71,100 for men and €67,800 for women, a wage gap of 4.75%.
This suggests a continuing worrying trend for female developers, who continue to expect far less wages and are paid far less than their male counterparts. This is particularly true for women in junior positions, where women are offered up to 8.6% less pay.
Women’s expectations are consistently lower than their male counterparts at all experience levels.
The negative trend also continues when we look at the average salaries offered by role and gender. Men receive higher salaries in all of the most sought-after developer positions in Germany. In particular, for DevOps engineers, an increasingly popular role, the gender pay gap is 8%.
Salary by language and location
We intensified our research on language proficiency and its impact on average developer salary this year, incorporating a greater number of language profile categories and the number of interview calls talent would receive based on their location and language proficiency.
For most roles, there was little or no difference between German and non-German speakers, particularly backend developers, suggesting that language is less important when developer demand is high enough.
Based on years of experience, the younger the developer, the more likely it is that local language skills will result in a higher salary, sometimes up to 8.9% higher than non-local language speakers.
When it comes to the demand for interview invitations. Our data showed that German speakers receive eight times more interview calls than non-speakers of the local language.
Interestingly, our expected salary data showed that the expected salary for German speakers was not significantly higher.
salary by city
Berlin once again took first place among German cities in terms of average salary offer. While it offered a slightly lower salary than Munich in 2022 (although it still equates to a higher income given the relative cost of living), it also has significantly higher salaries than other German cities in 2023. Developers in Berlin are offered 9% more than developers in the rest of Germany.
However, the demands of the developers in Berlin are not much higher than in other federal states. On average, Berlin companies offer 8.6% more than developers ask, indicating problems in the supply and demand balance for developer roles in Berlin. This could mean that Berlin is in high demand and has fewer developers than the rest of Germany, or that developers are leaving the German capital.
Average developer content in DACH
A look at the larger DACH region offers insights into the situation of individual locations with supply and demand from property developers as well as their own cost of living situation. Taking company size into account also gives employers a good idea of how to compete for qualified talent.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the cost of living, Switzerland offers the highest average salaries in the DACH region. Germany tends to follow in second place for most roles and company sizes, although the Netherlands pays significantly higher salaries to tech executives: 6% more than Germany.
The most sought-after tech stacks in Germany
Companies in Germany are primarily looking for software developers with knowledge of Javascript, React, Docker, Typescript and Python.
methodology
Our 2023 data is an average of the 2022 and 2023 data (28.5k data points) to ensure accuracy as the year is not over. The expected salary data is determined from developer profiles on the Honeypot platform. The salary data offered is based on a company’s first offer during the interview collected on the Honeypot platform. It does not reflect the final negotiated and contracted amount. We use an external library to determine gender based on the person’s first name.
You can download Full Developer Salary Report 2023 Here.