IT Salary Survey December 2024

🚀 How It All Started

The survey initially began in 2015 within the Russian-speaking community and has been conducted every December for the past nine years. While the audience has broadened over time, a significant portion of respondents remains expatriates, which may introduce certain biases into the results.

📋 Purpose

The primary goal of this survey is to assess the market value of IT skill sets, taking into account factors like years of experience, job position, tools proficiency, and more. In the survey report you will find a comprehensive comparative analysis of anonymized data collected from voluntary participants across Germany. You’re also invited to explore detailed analytics from previous years’ surveys in the archived articles. For example, the first chart of this report illustrates the trend in the median annual base salary among respondents since 2015.

👥 Audience

Since 2015, an anonymous salary survey has been conducted annually among European IT specialists, with a particular focus on Germany. From 2021 year, the scope was refined even further, dedicating the survey exclusively to Germany. This shift was driven by the significant economic differences across European countries — such as variations in taxation and cost of living — that heavily influence local salary benchmarks. Most respondents are expats living in Germany and working either for Germany or abroad (remote).

🌟 Author

Written by: Ksenia Legostay
Click the link above to learn more about the author and explore related content!

📂 Additional Resources

• 📊 Previous analysis for 2023 can be found here.
• 📁 Previously collected raw datasets (2019-2024) are available here.

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💖 As always, thanks to everyone participating!

The overall dynamics over 2015 – 2024

In December 2024, 717 participants from Germany completed the survey, a figure that remains consistent with participation levels in 2023 and 2022. The line chart below highlights the year-over-year changes in median base salary (excluding bonuses and stock options) since 2015. In 2024, the median salary increased from €86 000 to €90 000, marking a notable rise compared to 2023.

Cities

The median base salary increased by €2 500 in Berlin compared to the previous year, 2023, and by €3 000 in Munich, according to respondents' answers.

year/city	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Berlin	€70 000	€78 000	€82 000	€89 500	€92 000
Munich	€72 000	€78 000	€82 500	€87 000	€90 000

Annual leave for full-time employees

No changes compared to last year: nearly 60% of participants reported having 30 days of vacation.

Salaries

Employment status

97,4% of respondents in Germany are employed either full-time or part-time. The number of self-employed individuals decreased by 0.7% compared to the previous year, possibly reflecting the impact of cost-cutting measures recently implemented by companies.

Median salaries (EUR/year) per Position

Full-time employees

Take a closer look at the median salaries of engineers across different levels, from Junior to Principal. The median base salary for Software Engineers remains consistent with last year at €90,000. Additionally, their median total compensation has increased to €98,000, up from €95,000 in the previous year.

Work experience

• 90% of respondents have more than 4 years of total work experience, while 56% have been working in Germany for less than 4 years. The majority of these are recently arrived expats rather than former students just starting their careers.

• It’s also important to note the significant number of respondents with over 10 years of total work experience, indicating that the upcoming salary insights will largely reflect compensation levels for highly experienced professionals.

Salary by total years of experience

The chart illustrates the smoothed trend line of median total compensation (including bonuses and stock options) based on total years of experience for engineers.

The trend shows that total compensation increases steadily up to around 11 years of experience. After that point, it appears to plateau, suggesting that compensation may hit an industry ceiling. Beyond this threshold, the smoothed trend remains relatively flat, with occasional outliers both above and below the baseline.

Salary by levels

Use the legend on the right side of the chart to select the seniority level and view the corresponding base salaries based on years of experience.

The median total compensation across all tech positions is €97 000, up from €91 000 last year.

The scatterplot for total compensation shows a significant number of outliers above the median for both Senior and Staff levels compared to base salary. This indicates the presence of generous stock options and bonuses contributing to the total compensation for these respondents.

Total compensation breakdown

From the senior level onwards, employees typically become eligible for stock grants as part of their total compensation (TC).

• 38% of respondents above the mid-level receive only a base salary, while 62% have TC that includes a combination of base salary, bonuses, and stock options.
• 14% of respondents receive more than 20% of their TC through bonuses and stock grants.
• Interestingly, some senior-level respondents report that their base salary accounts for as little as 40% or even 30% of their total compensation, with the remaining portion coming from bonuses and stock options.

Used technologies

Shares of respondents by technologies

• The group of programming languages Java, Scala, and Kotlin has surpassed Python in popularity among respondents as the primary tool used at work. In previous years, however, each of these languages individually lagged behind Python, with Java coming the closest, trailing by 3.5%. Python is still actively utilized and often considered as a supplementary language.

• Non-tech instruments ranked 4th in popularity this year. While this is expected for certain roles that don't rely heavily on technical tools, it may also reflect the fact that professionals above the Senior level often focus less on hands-on development and more on leadership and management responsibilities.

• Overall, the trend for leading technologies has remained consistent year over year. However, this time, significantly more respondents listed Kubernetes and Terraform as their primary tools rather than secondary ones, marking a notable shift compared to previous years.

Popular add-on technologies

Docker, SQL, and Cloud continue to lead year over year. Last year, AWS maintained a significant lead over other cloud platforms.

Salary by Technologies

The box plots represent the base salary distributions for each technology.

Example: Python engineers' median annual base salary is €90 000, while its distribution varies considerably between €47 200 and €282 000.

The same technology-based salary distributions plot of TC.

Base salaries & total compensation YoY

Distribution of base salaries vs. total compensation

• The median base salary increased from €87 000 to €90 000 compared to 2023, while total compensation saw a more substantial rise from €90 000 to €97 000. This indicates that employers are offering more generous packages, including bonuses and stock options, in addition to base salaries.
• In 2024, there is a noticeable increase in right-sided outliers, suggesting a higher concentration of respondents in the upper end of the salary distribution.

Salaries in Germany over 2021 – 2023

• Over the past few years, the distribution of base salaries has been gradually shifting to the right, but in 2024, this trend did not continue. This suggests that most base salaries in the market have remained largely unchanged compared to the previous year.

• However, in 2024, there is a noticeable concentration of base salaries around €190 000 on the right tail of the distribution — a pattern that wasn’t present in 2023.

Total Compensation: Berlin vs. Munich

• We can see that the TC distributions are almost identical in two cities, with the only notable difference being that Munich’s curve is slightly shifted to the left, indicating slightly lower TCs compared to Berlin.

• We can also observe a small concentration around €200 000 on the curves for both cities.

Layoffs vs. hiring

Since 2022, we have been observing a continuing trend of mass layoffs, a pattern also reflected in respondents' answers for 2024 regarding recent layoffs within their companies.

The majority of mass layoffs reported by respondents occurred in large companies with over 1,000 employees. Fortunately, the percentage of employees witnessing layoffs in such companies decreased from 52% last year to 46.6% in 2024. Meanwhile, the share of respondents who reported layoffs in medium-sized companies (with staff ranging from 100 to 1,000 employees) remained consistent with 2023 levels.

However, similar to last year, more companies are hiring than laying off employees in 2024. For instance, 46.6% of respondents employed at corporations with over 1,000 employees reported that layoffs had taken place, while a notable 90.6% of respondents from the same corporations indicated that their companies are actively hiring.

Let’s take a closer look at the industries where respondents are employed and evaluate the share of layoffs and hiring within these sectors over the past year:

As expected, the majority of IT professionals work within the Information Services industry. In this sector, 54.1% of respondents reported that their companies were hiring specialists in 2024, while 58.3% noted that their companies conducted mass layoffs during the same period.

The percentages do not sum to 100% because, as noted earlier, companies may have been simultaneously laying off staff and hiring (e.g. as a cost-cutting strategy, such as relocating roles to low-cost regions).

Among all respondents whose companies experienced mass layoffs (approximately 48% of all surveyed), around 7% reported that they were personally laid off. Of those affected, half expressed dissatisfaction with the severance package they were offered.

• 62% of those impacted by layoffs have already secured a new job.
• In 2024, based on respondents' answers, the typical job search following a layoff lasts between 2 to 6 months.

AI-based services

• 71% of respondents in 2024, compared to 56% in 2023, reported that their company uses AI-based services in their daily work.
• Among those using AI, 25% noted a significant impact on the company’s business, 51% observed a moderate impact, and 22% saw no noticeable effect. These figures are nearly identical to those recorded in 2023.

As we can see, from 2023 to 2024, there has been an increase not only in the variety of AI services used in daily work but also in their overall adoption rates.

💖 Thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed this or found it helpful, feel free to star the repo on GitHub ⭐ or treat me to a coffee ☕