These factors will help you make the leap into the top 5%

Press release
Over €100,000 salary: These factors will help you make the leap into the top 5%

• 5% of employees in Germany earn more than 100,000 euros gross per year according to the Stepstone Salary Report 2025
• Factors for top earnings: the largest possible company in the right industry, the right location, personnel responsibility and a university degree
• Top occupational groups: Finance, management, law and advertising
• Gender pay gap and East-West pay gap also significant for top salaries
   

DÜSSELDORF, 26 June 2025 — A salary of over €100,000 doesn’t have to remain out of reach in future-proof professions. Using data from the Salary Report 2025, The Stepstone Group has now analysed the professional groups and industries in which a six-figure salary is possible full-time - and which factors make employees top earners. The result: top salaries often correlate with company size, personnel responsibility and overall level of education. The hiring hot spots where your chances to earn over 100,000 euros are highest in Hamburg, Hesse, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Berlin.

These professions and sectors attract salaries of €100,000 or more
Experts in the finance profession have good prospects of earning six-figure salaries: 18% of employees can find over €100,000 on their payslip. The proportion of top salaries is also particularly high in management (17%), law (11%) and advertising (11%).

According to Stepstone salary data, the sectors with the highest proportion of salaries over 100,000 euros are the pharmaceutical industry and banking (14% each). The aerospace industry follows with 13%. The automotive manufacturing, telecommunications, chemical and insurance industries also promise high remuneration: 11% of employees in each of these industries earn a salary of over €100,000 per year.

"The leading industries form the backbone of the economy in Germany. They include many large, world-class companies, which can therefore also pay above-average salaries," says Dr Tobias Zimmermann, labour market expert at The Stepstone Group. "The top industries are united by an enormous development dynamic with high innovation potential. By opting for jobs in future-proof industries, employees are not only investing in their current career, but also in their long-term employability."

Gender pay gap and East-West pay gap
The gender pay gap is also evident in top salaries. A man is around three times more likely to earn a six-figure salary than a woman. While 6% of men earn over 100,000 euros, not even 2% of women do.

The federal states with the highest proportion of top earners are Hamburg and Hesse (7% each). They are followed by Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg (6% each) and Berlin (5%). The lowest proportion of salaries over 100,000 euros is in Saxony-Anhalt (less than 2%). In the federal states of Thuringia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, the proportion of salaries over 100,000 euros is also low (2% in each case). The Stepstone salary figures thus confirm the continuing East-West pay gap.

Faster, higher, further? Company size, personnel responsibility and university degree
The size of the company is a key factor in achieving a top salary. While 13% of employees in companies with over 5,000 employees earn six-figure salaries, this figure is around 2% in smaller companies with fewer than 50 employees. Personnel responsibility and level of education also have a major influence on salary: almost 28% of employees with personnel responsibility and a university degree earn over 100,000 euros.

"Taking on responsibility pays off - and will increasingly so in the future", explains Dr Tobias Zimmermann. "In the age of artificial intelligence, highly qualified specialists and managers are becoming more important. This is because they control high-performance technologies that are essential for efficient work processes. For them, the chances of earning over 100,000 euros will increase in the future."

Data basis and methodology
The data is based on the Stepstone Salary Planner. For the analysis, a total of almost 1,250,000 salaries of full-time employees were analysed, which were collected in the period from January 2022 to November 2024. All salary data is given in euros and refers to the gross annual salary including bonuses, commissions, premiums, etc. The data was weighted according to official employment statistics and is representative of the labour force in terms of the distribution of the characteristics of age, gender, university degree, economic sector, and federal state of employment.

Average salary? Median salary? That's the difference
The average is calculated by totalling all values and then dividing by the number of data records. The average value can be influenced by extremely high or low values. To better categorise the average value, a comparison with the median helps. This value lies exactly in the centre of all values. This means that there are the same number of salaries that are lower and higher than the median salary.

About the Stepstone Salary Planner
In addition to the annual Stepstone Salary Report for specialists and managers, the online job platform 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 fully accurate forecast of personal salary levels based on the most important salary drivers (e.g. industry, job, experience). Further information can be found at: http://www.stepstone.de/gehaltsplaner.

About the Stepstone Salary Report 2025
The Stepstone Salary Report 2025 is based on one of the largest salary databases in Germany with salary information by location and region, occupational group, industry, professional experience and much more. The Salary Report 2025 is representative of the labour force at national and state level according to the criteria of age, gender, university degree and economic sector. The salary figures are not directly comparable with those from previous years. This is due to changes in the evaluation methodology and the composition of the sample.

About The Stepstone Group 
The Stepstone Group is a leading global digital recruitment platform that connects companies with the right talent and helps people find the right job. AI-driven job marketplaces and programmatic-powered marketing solutionsconnect about 140 million job applications with more than 130,000 employers every year. In 2024, The Stepstone Group generated revenue of over €900 million. The Stepstone Group operates in more than 30 countries - including Stepstone in Germany, Appcast in the USA and Totaljobs in the UK. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany and employs more than 3,000 people worldwide. For more information: www.thestepstonegroup.com/english

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