IT Salary Survey December 2023¶
An anonymous salary survey has been traditionally conducted annually since 2015 among European IT specialists in Germany. Below, you will find an in-depth comparative analysis of the aggregated anonymised responses from voluntary participants.
Purpose: to learn a competitive value of a skillset for IT specialists depending on years of experience, position, level, etc.
Audience: most respondents are expats living in Germany and working either for Germany or abroad (remote).
As always thanks to everyone participating!
The overall dynamics over 2015 – 2023¶
In December 2023, 714 participants from Germany completed the questionnaire, compared to 767 in 2022. The line chart below illustrates how the median base salary (excluding bonuses and stocks) has changed annually since 2015. In 2023, the median salary rose from 80k to 85k compared to the previous year, 2022.
Cities¶
The largest cities have experienced a notable rise in the median base salary year-over-year:
| year/city | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin | 70k | 78k | 82k | 89,5k |
| Munich | 72k | 78k | 82,5k | 87k |
| Hamburg | 64k | 70k | 75k | 86k |
Annual leave for full-time employees¶
Nearly 60% of participants indicated that they have 30 days of vacation.
Salaries¶
Employment status¶
Self-employed individuals (freelancers) constitute less than 1 percent of the respondents. Consequently, this report will not include a separate analysis for freelancers. Instead, it will focus on analyzing the reasons for unemployment and the success of job searches for individuals impacted by mass layoffs.
Median salaries (EUR/year) per Position¶
Full-time employees¶
In 2023, software engineers at various levels, ranging from junior to principal, are receiving a median base salary of around 89k in 2023, compared to 80k the previous year and 76k the year before that. Additionally, their median total compensation stands at around 91k, compared to 84.5k in the previous year.
Work experience¶
- ~90% of respondents have more than 4 years of work experience in total.
- ~41% have 5 to 10 years of overall work experience.
- ~44% of the respondents have worked in Germany for less than 4 years.
Salary by total years of experience¶
Here is an age/TC curve for engineers. Last year, salary growth was evident within the first 10 years of an engineer's career, after which salary typically stabilized around the median. This year, a second phase of salary growth has emerged between the 11th and 13th years of experience. Subsequently, the average salary fluctuates slightly above the market median.
Salary by levels¶
The median of base salary of all tech positions is 87k (80k in 2022; 75k in 2021), with bonuses and stocks - 91k (86k in 2022; 80k in 2021).
Total compensation breakdown¶
From senior-level onwards, employees typically become eligible for stock grants as part of their total compensation (TC):
- 40% of respondents above the mid-level receive solely a base salary (primarily seniors), while 60% have TC consisting of base salary, bonuses, and stocks.
- 14% receive more than 20% of their TC in bonuses and stocks.
- 1.3% have an equal proportion of base salary and stocks in their TC.
Used technologies¶
Shares of respondents by technologies
- Python's share has decreased compared to last year, whereas Java and JavaScript have retained their proportional shares. However, this is mainly because Python is still actively utilized but isn't necessarily identified as a primary language; rather, it's often considered as a supplementary language.
- Kotlin has surged in ranking, moving from 7th to 4th place.
- The rankings of other technologies have remained largely consistent compared to the previous year.
Popular add-on technologies¶
Docker, SQL ans QWS keep leading year over year.
Salary by Technologies¶
The box plots represent the base salary distributions for each technology.
Example: Python engineers' median annual base salary is 89,75k (80k last year), while its distribution varies considerably between 30k and 200k.
The median base salary rose from 75k to 80k to 86.5k, while the median total compensation (TC) increased from 80k to 85k to 92k between 2021 and 2023.
Salaries in Germany over 2015 – 2023¶
There has been a shift in the distribution of base salaries for 2023: it is noticeably skewed towards higher salaries on the right tail compared to the previous year, 2022.
TC in big cities¶
In the three cities most represented in the survey, the TC distributions are nearly identical: the medians are almost the same, with only a slight difference observed in the right tails of the distributions, but it is insignificant.
As the survey indicates, the majority of respondents stated that their company did not lay off employees during 2022-2023. Additionally, most companies continued to actively hire employees in 2023.
In the IT sector, as in others, more employees are still being hired than are being laid off. Mass layoffs are most noticeable in the technical, financial, and commercial sectors.
The majority of mass layoffs reported by respondents occurred in relatively large companies with staff sizes exceeding 1000 employees. Last year, only 33% of employees in large companies witnessed layoffs, whereas in 2023, this figure increased to 50%. Additionally, the proportion of layoffs in medium-sized companies with staff ranging from 100 to 1000 employees increased from 28% to 44% during 2022-2023.
Among all respondents whose companies experienced mass layoffs (approximately 47% of all surveyed), 5.8% stated that they were among those laid off. Two thirds of them indicated that they were satisfied with the severance package provided by the company, while one thirds expressed dissatisfaction with the offered severance package.
- 40% of the respondents impacted by layoffs have already secured a new job, while the remaining 60% are not actively seeking a new position.
- Approximately 20% have transitioned to full/part-time employment, with compensation varying from sometimes worse to sometimes better than their previous situation before the layoff.
- Typically, job searches following a layoff take between 3 to 5 months, although there are cases where it extends to as long as 15 months.
AI-based services¶
- 56% of respondents stated that their company incorporates AI-based services into their daily operations.
- Of those utilizing AI, 32% of respondents noted a significant impact on their business, while 44% indicated a moderate impact, and 23% reported no discernible impact on their business.
That's all for now. Thank you all for participating! If you enjoyed this survey and found its results helpful in any way, you can show your appreciation by:
- buying me a coffee using this link,
- starring this repository on GitHub.
Also, feel free to connect with me on social media.
