Top 5 Salary Insights for Germany from the 2025 SO Developer Survey
The 2025 version of the annual StackOverflow developer survey reveals fascinating insights into current trends in software development. This top-five list features beautifully illustrated salary distributions with sometimes surprising market trends.
BBjarki Sigurðsson
Hi, I'm the author of this blog! I hold a M.Sc. in Robot Systems Engineering and have been working as a full-stack developer for 7 years, specializing in React and TypeScript.
I've compiled the results of the 2025 StackOverflow Developer Survey and plotted the data. The visualisations reveal very clear trends when comparing salaries across different demographics.
5. Salary Distribution by Education Level
Q: “Which of the following best describes the highest level of formal education that you’ve completed? ”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, higher education shows a strong correlation to high salary. There's likely to be some selection bias in play here: respondents with lower education levels may have already started earning next to their ongoing studies.
4. Salary Distribution by Years Coding
Q: “Including any education, how many years have you been coding in total? Please round to the nearest whole number, excluding any decimal points.”
No surprises here: More experience equals more money, with barely any exceptions. I just really enjoy looking at this data.
3. Salary Distribution by Age
Q: “What is your age?”
While similar to the trend we saw for years of coding experience, there's a visible plateau starting with the 35–44-year-old demographic. If you were paying close attention, you'll also notice that the 55–64-year-old group is listed before the 45–54-year-old one. This is (somewhat) intentional, since all the graphs are sorted by median, meaning the younger group earns more! Or maybe members of the older group have already started enjoying an early retirement.
2. Salary Distribution by Developer Type
Q: “Which of the following describes your current job or the job you had for the most time in the past year?”
These results are somewhat predictable. Notably, however, mobile developers sit very near the top, with full-stack developers earning the least money, excluding academia. In the age of AI, data engineers and data scientists are well-compensated.
1. Salary Distribution by Remote Work
Q: “Which best describes your current work situation?”
Interestingly, remote work shows a very strong correlation to higher salaries. Note that there's likely some selection bias at play here: lower wage groups, such as students, interns, and juniors may be less likely to be granted remote work privileges due to needing more supervision than more senior professionals. Also note the spread of the "In-person" curve. There's a small spike at 100k€, perhaps indicating a tendency for higher-wage individuals (likely senior or management) to spend more time in the office.
What are your thoughts on the survey results? What insights do you want to see next? Reach out to me on LinkedIn!