Employers are particularly secretive in these jobs. Have a look who hides most and why!
Especially in high-paying industries like IT, hardly any employers publicly disclose their earnings.
We give job seekers more clarity.
According to a survey, nine out of ten job seekers would like to see salary information in the job ad.
In general, the topic of salary in Germany is a very private one. If you ask a German employee about his salary, you will probably get no answer or a very vague one.
Also, one must always ask whether the person asked is talking about gross (before tax) or net (after tax). Depending on earnings and tax class, this can result in a value that is up to 45% lower.
This is quite different from Anglo-Saxon countries where the topic of money and income has a more public status.
Therefore, it is also very difficult to get data and statements on this topic because companies also find it very difficult to disclose their salary structure or to give the competition an opportunity to lure away employees with a higher offer more easily.
This phenomenon can be observed very often, especially in privately run companies.
Most German employers, however, do not comply with this request:
Only one-fifth of the companies that post their job ads on Indeed also include a salary.
This puts Germany at the bottom of the list of the four European economies analyzed by Indeed. In the UK, France and the Netherlands, employers are much more transparent.
For German companies, this is becoming a problem in times of a historic shortage of skilled workers and managers, says Indeed labor market expert Annina Hering: “This is how many employers miss the opportunity to attract talent.”
For the highest-paying jobs in this list, we show what you can really earn there.
Salary: "Despite chronic staff shortages, employers are keeping a low profile".
In which occupational groups are employers particularly opaque when it comes to money – and where are they more willing to provide information?
The Indeed data show that salary information can be found in at least 38 percent of job offers in the warehousing, production and manufacturing sectors.
Job offers for doctors, on the other hand, are the worst equipped with salary information:
In less than four percent of the job ads, employers name concrete salaries for physicians.
"Despite chronic staff shortages, employers are keeping a low profile," says Annina Hering from Indeed.
Clinic or practice operators therefore did not want to disclose, either online or offline, that they offer an ophthalmologist, for example, an annual gross salary of 162,000 euros or that a specialist in trauma surgery earns 145,000 euros per year.
These figures are derived from the few salary disclosures in medical jobs that Indeed was able to analyze.
Median salaries were considered, i.e., the incomes where there are just as many people in an occupational group with a higher gross annual salary as those with a lower gross annual salary.
Salaries are also hardly advertised in German banking and finance, or in jobs in data analytics and information management.
Salary information can only be found in five and just under seven percent of the job ads respectively.
There is one positive outlier in the academic field: jobs in chemical engineering.
Here, employers advertise 38 percent of their vacancies with clear salary information for new employees with a university degree.
The fact that salary transparency makes employers more attractive is also shown by the latest salary report from the online job portal Stepstone.
Around 5,000 German employees of all educational levels were asked about their opinion in 2022.
The statement “If a company provides concrete information on salary, this has a positive influence on my opinion of the company,” was agreed to by 85 percent of those surveyed.
A good 80 percent even said, “I’m more likely to apply to a job ad if it gives specific details about salary or salary range.”
1. Finance
Asset manager:
70,000 euros
Asset managers invest the assets of private individuals or companies in funds or life insurance policies. The goal is to generate the highest possible return with the lowest possible risk. They are looking for people with strong communication skills who are familiar with new markets, products, trends and financing options.
Risk manager:
67,500 euros
The risk manager analyzes the risks associated with major business decisions and assesses the consequences, which may be financial, environmental or even technical. He also develops strategies on how to minimize risks. Employers ranging from medium-sized companies to Dax corporations have a need for experienced support in this area.
2. Law
Specialist attorney for labor law:
79,000 euros
Recording working hours, electronic certificates of incapacity to work, whistleblowing, data protection, the advent of artificial intelligence: there are currently major construction sites to be tackled in human resources. Lawyers with the relevant expertise are in demand.
Legal Counsel:
79,000 euros
A legal counsel acts as an important interface and coordinator in the cooperation with the management, the board members and external as well as foreign specialist lawyers. In addition, he or she is responsible for general contract management, i.e., the preparation, review and administration of contracts.
3. IT
Lead Data Scientist:
110,000 euros
This recognized expert in data science is tasked with leading teams of scientists, machine learning engineers, and Big Data specialists to develop innovative software for analysis and prediction. Not only must he or she be comfortable with a variety of data sets, such as purchasing and supply chain data or customer management data, but he or she must also have leadership expertise.
Machine Learning Engineer:
85,000 euros
If you want artificial intelligence to make accurate predictions or provide a basis for valid human decisions, you have to feed the algorithm with large amounts of data. Then, through training, the system learns to recognize patterns in economic figures, climate data or information on traffic flows. Experts who know how to do this score points with companies.
4. Software development
C++ developer: 110,000 euros
Those who can develop computer applications with this very efficient but comparatively complicated programming language are in high demand. This is the professional league:
Apple’s OS X operating system, but also Adobe’s Photoshop for image editing or Mozilla’s Firefox Internet browser were programmed with C++. Almost every industry is urgently looking for reinforcements here to further digitalize machines and processes.
Java Consultant:
100,000 euros
The Java programming language can be used to create applications for many end devices, from smartphones and game consoles to navigation systems or surveillance systems that are to be networked.
The Java Consultant advises customers on the planning and implementation of these IT projects. He acts as an interface to the Java programmers.
In general, you will find a good overview of the salary classifications of certain occupational groups, which you do not often see in Germany. Of course, companies that pay according to collective agreements (union members) have a more transparent salary policy because they have to make it public.
In Germany, however, the minority of companies are in a trade union and the proportion is continuously decreasing.