Berlin’s tech workers’ wages have remained almost stagnant since last year, while the gender pay gap widened to 20% in the same period, a new report shows.
A survey of 1,845 workers by Handpicked Berlin, a German weekly newsletter, suggests men working in tech in the capital earned a median salary of €83k, compared to the average woman’s wage of €66k.
In leadership positions, the pay gap has widened to 24.5%, up from 14.46% last year.
The results put the German capital’s tech gender pay gap at 4% higher than the average for all industries in the city, according to the latest statistics for the labour market in Brandenburg.
“Last year, I spoke about the performative nature of equity efforts in tech — this year’s numbers confirm that little has changed,” says Tamara Rose Morales, business and leadership coach for women and DEI consultant, in a statement.
“In fact, the gender pay gap in leadership has grown even wider. When women in identical roles still earn significantly less, it’s not a pipeline problem, it’s a values problem. Until companies embed equity into their systems, with transparent salary benchmarks, bias-aware decision-making, and accountability at every level, progress will remain painfully slow.”
Berlin salaries stagnate
Between 2024 and 2025, the average median salary remained unchanged at €75k — a slowdown from the 7% on salary increases shown in Handpicked’s 2024 survey.
38.58% of respondents said they did not receive a pay rise in the last year — a slight improvement on last year’s survey with 41.7% of respondents reporting no raise.
Most respondents (59.13%) received neither bonus nor equity, an increase from 2024’s results of 55.65%.
German language skills don’t correspond to higher salaries, according to Handpicked’s findings. Professionals with a high level of fluency actually earn less (67.3k median) than those who have limited German language competency (79.8k), with the report concluding that this indicates the high value the German ecosystem places on international talent.
The slowdown in salaries is having an impact on talent retention. Nearly a third of respondents said they are ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to switch jobs in 2025, with those with lower salaries showing the greatest intention to jump ship.
The best paid roles
The best paid roles in Berlin are in software engineering.
Senior engineering leaders earn a median salary of €110k per annum.
SRE (site reliability engineers) and infrastructure specialists are the second highest paid at a median salary of €101k.
Front-end specialists earn significantly less than backend developers with median annual salaries of €78.5k and €95k respectively.
Methodology note: Median salary is used as it offers a more accurate representation of what an individual earns because it is less affected by outliers than the mean. Salary is calculated without bonuses or equity.
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