Start of the apprenticeship year: These are the entry-level jobs with the best starting salaries

• Young workers starting out can earn up to 40,000 euros gross media salary in the first year after vocational qualification
• Particularly high starting salaries are available in tech and engineering roles such as IT specialist, industrial mechanic, mechatronics technician and electronics technician
• Commercial vocational qualifications also do well: Bank clerks, personnel services clerks and real estate clerks among the top 10

Hundreds of thousands of apprenticeship positions in Germany are currently going unfilled – despite many of these professions offering attractive salaries to potential applicants after graduation. While many apprenticeship programs have already started this August, the German Federal Employment Agency has reported that there are more than 200,000 vacant apprenticeship positions on offer. The recruiting portal Stepstone.de reports there are around 26 percent more apprenticeship positions in the first half of 2023 than in the same period of the previous year. According to an analysis by The Stepstone Groupthose looking for the best starting salaries should look to start a career as an IT specialist, industrial mechanic, mechatronics technician or bank clerk. In these jobs, a gross median salary of up to 40,000 euros can be expected in the first year after the diploma. By comparison, according to the Stepstone Salary Report 2023, the gross median annual salary in Germany is currently 43,842 euros.

"Germany needs more apprentices! The increasing great labor shortage has long since made its presence felt not only in the technical and skilled trades. Staff shortages are part of our everyday life," says Dr. Tobias Zimmermann, labor market expert at The Stepstone Group. "Vocational training is a cornerstone of the German labor market. Especially in times of widespread labor shortages, it offers promising and secure career prospects. More and more companies are attracting young people with creative programs. But vocational training must become even more attractive, and premature dropouts must be prevented. That is why it is important that young people earn attractive salaries during their training and afterwards. But it is also important that even more employers get involved in the reality of young talents and accept the competition on the labor market. We will depend on apprentices in the future. They are the ones who will decisively drive the transformation of our economy.

The 10 apprenticeship professions with the highest starting salary (less than 1 year of work experience):

• IT specialist: 40,000 euros gross median annual salary
• Industrial mechanic: 39,200 euros gross median annual salary
• Bank clerk: 38,974 euros gross median annual salary
• Mechatronics technician: 38,400 euros gross median annual salary
• Personnel services clerk: 37,200 euros gross median annual salary
• Electronics technician for automation technology: 37,200 euros gross median annual salary
• Electronics technician: 36,923 euros gross median annual salary
• Electronics technician for industrial engineering: 36,000 euros gross median annual salary
• Real estate clerk: 35,522 euros gross median annual salary
• Machine and plant operator: 35,500 euros gross median annual salary

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 833,000 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