A salary of more than €100,000: The recipe for the dream income

• The factors for a €100,000 salary: staff responsibility, university degree, a company that is as large as possible, in the right industry and in the right location.
• Top industry: 16 percent of pharmaceutical employees earn more than €100,000
• Gender pay gap: 7 percent of men earn more than €100,000 – of women only 2 percent
• Top pay also reflects East-West divide

Staff responsibility, the right industry, a large company, a university degree, the right location: these are the most important factors in Germany, when it comes to earning a salary of more than €100,000. To decipher the formula for a six-figure salary, The Stepstone Group, a leading global digital recruiting platform, evaluated more than 800,000 current salaries across all industries and professions.

The basis is the gross median salary. This value is exactly in the middle of all values. This means that there are exactly the same number of salaries that are lower and higher than the median salary.

Gender Pay Gap and East-West Divide
Across Germany, 6 per cent of employees are earning more than €100,000, according to Stepstone’s own salary data. The highest proportions of top earners are in Hamburg and Hesse, where 8 per cent are earning more than €100,000. This is followed by Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria (7 per cent) and North Rhine-Westphalia (6 per cent). Saxony-Anhalt has the lowest share (2 per cent), followed by the other eastern states of Germany and Schleswig-Holstein with 3 per cent each. The Stepstone analysis underlines the ongoing East-West economic divide remains unresolved.

The gender pay gap - the difference in pay between men and women - is also noticeable among top earners. As a man, you are more than three times as likely to earn a six-figure salary compared to a woman. While 7 per cent of men earn more than 100,000 euros, only 2 per cent of women do.

The recipe for a €100,000 salary: The right job in the right industry
It is simply not possible to earn €100,000 in every profession. The highest proportions of employees with this income are found in management (17 per cent), law (15 per cent) and finance (10 per cent). According to Stepstone's salary data, lawyers and finance professionals are the top earners in Germany, alongside managerial positions.

According to Stepstone's salary database, the sector with the highest proportion of employees earning more than €100,000 is pharmaceuticals. Here 16 per cent of the workforce earn such a salary. The aerospace industry (15 per cent), banking (14 per cent) and chemicals (14 per cent) also have particularly high proportions of top earners.

Managing people in the largest possible company

On the road to a six-figure salary, taking responsibility for people and teams is a key factor. 12 per cent of employees who manage individuals or a team are paid more than €100,000. Without staff responsibility, it is just 2 per cent.

Someone who manages a small team of 1-4 people is already three times more likely to earn a salary of €100,000 than someone who has no responsibility for people. The larger the team, the more likely it is to earn a high salary. For a team of more than 50 people, the likelihood is 19 per cent, and for a team of more than 100, it is 35 per cent. Lawyers, for example, are an exception: In this occupational group, 9 per cent of employees earn the dream salary even without any staff responsibility. At the same time, a job in the pharmaceutical industry is particularly promising: 10 per cent of employees earn €100,000 a year even without staff responsibility.

The choice of employer is also an important factor in breaking the €100,000 barrier: The larger the company, the more likely the top salary. In companies with more than 10,000 employees, the likelihood is 16 per cent, and 10 per cent in companies with between 5,001 and 10,000 employees. In small companies with up to 50 employees, on the other hand, the chance of earning 100,000 euros is only 2 per cent.

"Salary is a crucial factor in the decision to change jobs. But that doesn't mean that other factors, such as corporate culture, task design or job satisfaction, are unimportant. On the contrary: job seekers are looking for the right overall package. Given the great people shortage affecting all sectors, they increasingly have a choice - and they are making use of it," says Dr. Tobias Zimmermann, labour market expert at The Stepstone Group.

The Stepstone salary figures

All salary data is stated in Euro and refers to the median, unless otherwise specified. All salaries are gross annual salaries including bonuses, commissions, premiums, etc. The data is based on the Stepstone Salary Planner. A total of around 810,000 salaries of full-time employees were analysed for the period January 2021 to June 2023. The data is weighted according to official employment statistics and is representative of the labour force in terms of the distribution of age, gender, education, economic sector and German federal state of employment.

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 salary planner
In addition to the annual Stepstone Salary Report for Professionals and Executives, the online job site 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). More information: www.stepstone.de/gehaltsplaner