Salaries in Germany: From Hairdressers and Truck Drivers to Nurses, Doctors and Pilots

Germany is one of Europe’s most important labour markets, and pay is often among the first questions people ask when considering employment in the country. However, there is no simple answer to how much people earn in Germany. Monthly differences between occupations can amount to thousands of euros, while qualifications, experience, place of work, employer and sector all influence earnings.

To compare salaries, we used data from Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, specifically its Entgeltatlas – Salary Atlas.

Entgeltatlas is the Federal Employment Agency’s official online database for comparing pay across a large number of occupations in Germany. Its figures are based on reported earnings of employees subject to compulsory social insurance and can be viewed by occupation, gender, age group and place of work.

Whenever this article gives a salary for a particular occupation, it does not refer to a conventional average. Instead, it shows the median gross monthly salary of full-time employees reported by Entgeltatlas.

This distinction matters. If the median salary is €3,000, half of the employees in that group earn less than €3,000 and the other half earn more. Unlike the arithmetic mean, the median cannot be pushed up significantly by a small number of exceptionally high salaries. It therefore provides a useful picture of typical earnings in a particular occupation.

Germany’s minimum wage from 2026

Before comparing individual occupations, it is important to start with the statutory minimum.

Germany’s statutory minimum wage, known as the Mindestlohn, is €13.90 gross per hour from 1 January 2026.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, has also announced the next increase: from 1 January 2027, the minimum wage will be €14.60 gross per hour.

The minimum wage is the statutory lower limit, but this does not mean that employees in every occupation earn an amount close to it. Salaries in skilled and highly qualified professions can be several times higher.

Hairdresser

Hairdressers, known in German as Friseur or Friseurin, are among the lower-paid occupations in our comparison.

According to the Federal Employment Agency’s Entgeltatlas, the median gross monthly salary for skilled work in hairdressing is €2,236 for full-time employees in Germany.

This means that half of the employees covered by the statistics earn less than €2,236 gross per month, while the other half earn more.

Pay also varies by place of work. For example, the median gross salary is €2,323 in Hamburg and €2,410 in Cologne.

The salary range further illustrates how much earnings can differ within the same occupation. The bottom quarter of employees earn less than €1,836, while the top quarter earn more than €2,545 gross per month.

Truck driver

Professional drivers, known in German as Berufskraftfahrer or Berufskraftfahrerin, are in high demand on the German labour market.

For professional freight drivers and truck drivers, Entgeltatlas reports a median salary of €3,048 gross per month.

The bottom quarter of employees earn less than €2,614, while the top quarter earn more than €3,614 gross per month.

Here too, the place of work can make a substantial difference. The median gross salary for professional drivers reaches €3,730 in Frankfurt am Main and €3,705 per month in Munich.

The figure for Germany as a whole should therefore be viewed as an indicator of typical earnings, not as a guaranteed amount that every driver will receive.

Care assistant

Gesundheits- und Krankenpflegehelfer/in is the German term for an assistant working in healthcare and hospital nursing.

This occupation must be clearly distinguished from a qualified nurse, as German statistics classify these roles at different qualification levels.

According to Entgeltatlas, the median salary for assistant staff in healthcare and hospital nursing is €3,363 gross per month for full-time employees.

The bottom quarter earn less than €2,963, while the top quarter earn more than €3,942 gross per month.

This figure already highlights a distinctive feature of Germany’s labour market. The median salary of a healthcare assistant is higher than that of a professional driver in our comparison, while the difference compared with hairdressing exceeds €1,000 gross per month.

Nurse

Pflegefachmann or Pflegefachfrau is the German term for a qualified professional working in nursing care. It most closely corresponds to a qualified nurse, although German professional qualifications cannot always be translated directly into titles used in other countries.

German terminology also includes Gesundheits- und Krankenpfleger/in, meaning a healthcare and hospital nurse, as well as the older terms Krankenschwester and Krankenpfleger.

For skilled work in healthcare and hospital nursing, Entgeltatlas reports a median gross salary of €4,587 per month.

The bottom quarter of employees earn less than €4,111, while the top quarter earn more than €5,116 gross per month.

This is particularly relevant for people from abroad who are considering employment in Germany’s healthcare sector. The difference between a care assistant and qualified nursing staff is not merely formal; it is also clearly reflected in pay.

When comparing salaries in the care sector, it is therefore important to check the exact job title and the recognised level of professional qualification. Not every role commonly described as “Pflege”, or care, is paid the same or requires the same level of education.

Bank employee

Bankkaufmann or Bankkauffrau is the German term for a bank employee with the corresponding professional qualification.

According to official Entgeltatlas data, the median gross monthly salary for this occupation is €5,680.

The bottom quarter of employees earn less than €4,464, while the top quarter earn more than €6,978 gross per month.

Regional differences are particularly notable. In the federal state of Hesse, home to Frankfurt, one of Europe’s most important financial centres, the median is €6,751. In Frankfurt am Main itself, the median gross salary reaches €7,276 per month.

In Hamburg, the median salary for bank employees is €6,154 gross.

These figures clearly demonstrate how important the place of work can be in occupations concentrated in major business and financial centres.

Doctor

Arzt or Ärztin is the German term for a doctor, and this profession is unsurprisingly near the top of our comparison.

According to Entgeltatlas, the median gross monthly salary for doctors in Germany is €7,450.

The bottom quarter of employees earn less than €6,348 gross per month, while the top quarter earn more than €8,050.

These figures must also be interpreted with care. This is not the salary of every doctor in Germany, nor does it mean that a doctor will immediately earn €7,450 after arriving in the country. Pay depends on professional experience, position, specialisation, collective agreement and the institution where the doctor works.

Statistics for employed doctors should also not be equated with the income of doctors who operate their own practices, as revenue and expenses in private practice are calculated differently.

Pilot

Berufspilot or Berufspilotin is the German term for a professional pilot. This occupation is at the very top of our comparison.

Pilots, however, present an interesting statistical issue.

For professional pilots, Entgeltatlas reports a median gross monthly salary of more than €8,050.

The bottom quarter is at approximately €7,267, while even the top quarter is above €8,050 gross per month.

Why is there no more precise figure?

The reason lies in the way Entgeltatlas statistics are compiled. Earnings data come from social insurance reports, and very high salaries above a certain threshold cannot be distinguished precisely in these statistics.

That threshold is linked to the Beitragsbemessungsgrenze, the contribution assessment ceiling.

For some highly paid occupations, the Federal Employment Agency therefore does not publish an arbitrarily calculated amount. Instead, it states that earnings are “above” the statistically available threshold.

In other words, the figure does not mean that a professional pilot earns exactly €8,050 per month. It means that the median salary for pilots is higher than this amount.

From just over €2,200 to more than €8,000 per month

When the occupations are placed side by side, the differences become very clear.

A hairdresser has a median gross salary of €2,236 per month, a professional driver €3,048 and a healthcare assistant €3,363. For a qualified nurse, the median rises to €4,587, while a bank employee reaches €5,680.

Doctors have a median gross salary of €7,450, while the median for professional pilots is above €8,050 per month.

These figures also show why it is not enough to say that the “average salary in Germany” is a particular amount. Differences between occupations, qualification levels and regions are so substantial that a single national average says little to someone who wants to know how much they can earn in a specific profession.

Gross salary is not the amount employees receive in their bank account

All amounts stated in this article are gross salaries.

When a job advertisement in Germany lists a salary of €3,500, €4,500 or €6,000, this is not the amount that will be paid into the employee’s bank account each month. Taxes and social security contributions are deducted from gross pay.

The final net salary depends on several factors, including the Steuerklasse, or tax class. Contributions for health insurance, pension insurance, unemployment insurance and long-term care insurance are also important.

As a result, two people with the same gross salary may not receive the same net amount at the end of the month.

Germany has several tax classes, and understanding how they work is particularly important for employees who are married, have children or move to Germany with a partner.

Germany’s tax classes, the differences between them and their effect on net salary will be examined in detail in a separate article.

What these figures actually tell us

The numbers reveal something that is often lost in discussions about “German salaries”: there is no single salary that can describe Germany’s labour market.

Professional qualifications can make a substantial difference. This is especially clear in healthcare, where official statistics show a median gross salary of €3,363 for a care assistant, compared with €4,587 per month for qualified nursing staff.

Location matters as well. A bank employee has a median gross salary of €5,680 across Germany, while the figure reaches €7,276 in Frankfurt am Main.

Entgeltatlas figures should therefore be treated as a reliable indicator of earnings on Germany’s labour market, but not as a promise that every employee in a particular occupation will receive exactly the stated amount.

When considering a specific job offer, it is necessary to examine the gross salary stated in the contract, the number of working hours, possible supplements for night work, weekends and public holidays, the place of work, the experience recognised by the employer and the required level of professional qualification.

Only then is it possible to form a realistic picture of what a particular job in Germany actually pays.

Data sources

The occupational salary figures used in this article were taken from the Entgeltatlas (Salary Atlas), the official database of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, the Bundesagentur für Arbeit. Entgeltatlas presents data based on statistics for employees subject to compulsory social insurance. This article uses median gross monthly salaries for full-time employees.

The statutory minimum wage figures were taken from the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS), Germany’s Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. According to official data, the minimum wage is €13.90 gross per hour from 1 January 2026, with an increase to €14.60 gross per hour scheduled for 1 January 2027.

Official sources: Bundesagentur für Arbeit – Entgeltatlas (Salary Atlas); Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS) – information on Germany’s statutory minimum wage.