Law, medicine, computer science lead degrees with top entry-level salaries

Press release
Law, medicine, computer science lead degrees with top entry-level salaries

• The Top jobs: lawyer, information security officer, assistant doctor
• Good incomes are also on offer for newly qualified engineers
• The Stepstone Group releases new analysis into entry-level salaries above 50,000 euros
   

DUESSELDORF May 28, 2024 – Anyone studying law, medicine or computer science in Germany has the best prospects of achieving a top salary at the start of their career. In other roles, newly qualified engineers can also often play in the top salary league right from an entry level. This is the result of the latest analysis by the digital recruiting platform The Stepstone Group. The analysis has determined in which professions, regardless of training, a gross median salary above 50,000 Euros can be achieved with less than three years of professional experience and at the age of up to 27.


Many IT and engineering professions among the top jobs
In addition to jobs as lawyers (€61,750) and assistant doctors (€56,500), positions in IT and engineering are particularly rewarding when starting a career. Of those jobs with a gross median salary of more than €50,000, around a third are in information technology. It’s in this sector that the jobs of information security officer (€57,750), data scientist (€54,750) and penetration tester (€54,000), who simulate cyber-attacks on networks, are at the top of the list and show that expertise in IT security will be particularly well paid in Germany in 2024.


A further third of the top jobs in the early career phase are engineering professions. At the top of the list are development engineers (€54,750), followed by engineer (€54,500), electrical engineer (€54,250) and process engineer (€52,500).

Entry-level salary: a higher education degree is almost always worth it
Although it is possible to earn a good salary in Germany even after training, a university degree often pays off at the start of a career when compared with other qualifications. For example, career starters under the age of 28 and with 3 years of professional experience earn a gross median salary of 45,000 euros if they have a university degree. Without a degree, the figure drops  to 34,500 euros.


“Two trends will have a decisive impact on the workplace in the near future: Automation and the great labor shortage. So it's no wonder that engineering and tech professions, among others, have excellent prospects. They are particularly important for ensuring the future prospects of our country. However, we should also not forget apprenticeships which offer excellent prospects, for example in the healthcare, the education sector or in the skilled trades. There is already a considerable shortage in these areas and demand is set to increase in the future. All these jobs will therefore experience a significant revaluation in the future,” says Dr. Tobias Zimmermann, labor market expert at The Stepstone Group.
If you want to calculate your own salary potential, the Stepstone Salary Planner is the right tool for you. With hundreds of thousands of comparative data, you can determine your own market value with absolute confidentiality. More information at: https://www.stepstone.de/gehaltsplaner 

The complete list of top entry-level salaries

Occupation*	Gross median salary in €
Lawyer	61,750
Information security officer	57,750
Assistant doctor	56,500
Development engineer	54,750
Data scientist	54,750
Engineer	54,500
Electrical engineer	54,250
Penetration tester	54,000
Data Engineer	53,750
Pharmacist	52,750
Process engineer	52,500
Sales engineer	52,500
Test engineer	52,250
Cloud Engineer	52,000
Consultant	51,750
Industrial engineer	51,500
Quality engineer	51,500
IT security consultant	51,500
DevOps engineer	51,500
Project engineer	51,000
IT-Consultant	51,000
Analyst	50,500
Project manager construction	50,500
Mechanical engineer	50,500
Design engineer	50,250
Systems engineer	50,000
Business analyst	50,000

* The study included entry-level employees up to and including 27 years of age without management responsibility, with less than 3 years of professional experience and a gross median salary of €50,000 or more. The values are rounded to 250 euro increments for better readability. The evaluation is based on the remuneration data from the Stepstone Salary Report 2024. All data was checked and weighted by our remuneration consultants.


About the Stepstone Salary Planner
In addition to the annual Stepstone Salary Report, the online job platform Stepstone offers other salary-related services. These include the Stepstone Salary Planner, for which job experts and market researchers have developed an algorithm that provides a very accurate forecast of personal salary levels based on the most important salary drivers (e.g. industry, job, experience). Further information can be found at: www.stepstone.de/gehaltsplaner

About the Stepstone Salary Report 2024
The Stepstone Salary Report 2024 is drawn from one of the largest salary databases in Germany with salary information by location and region, occupational group, industry, professional experience and much more. The Salary Report 2024 is representative of the working population at national and state level according to the criteria of age, gender, university degree and economic sector. The salary figures are not directly comparable with those from previous years. This results from changes in the evaluation methodology and the composition of the sample.

Download the Stepstone Salary Report 2024 and further information and assessments for employers and managers: https://www.stepstone.de/e-recruiting/gehalt-deutschland/
Information and assessments for employees and applicants: https://www.stepstone.de/magazin/gehaltsvergleich   

What is the median salary? And how does it differ from the average salary?
The average is calculated by adding up all values and then dividing by the number of data records. The average value can be influenced by extremely high or low values. A comparison using the median therefore helps to better classify the average value. The median is the value that lies exactly in the middle of all the values. This means that the number of salaries that are lower and higher than the median salary is exactly the same.

About The Stepstone Group 
The Stepstone Group is a leading global digital recruitment platform that connects companies with the right talent and helps people find the right job. The Stepstone Group connects more than 130 million job applications with around 140,000 employers every year. With its integrated platforms, The Stepstone Group simplifies the candidates job search as well supporting recruiters with AI-powered solutions for the entire recruitment process. In 2023, The Stepstone Group generated revenue of around €1 billion. The Stepstone Group operates in more than 30 countries - including Stepstone in Germany, Appcast in the USA and Totaljobs in the UK. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany and employs around 4,000 people worldwide. For more information: www.thestepstonegroup.com/en

Contact
The Stepstone Group Media Relations
press@stepstone.com