Average gross starting salary for university graduates in Germany 2023

German law graduates holding a doctorate degree can currently expect the highest average gross starting salary in the country when they enter the job market. Other degrees with good earning prospects include medicine, computer science (also with a doctorate degree), and industrial engineering. In comparison, those who studied graphics/design, humanities and social sciences are at the bottom of the starting salary food chain.

Law courses among most attended

Law, economics and social sciences were the subject groups seeing the highest student numbers in German universities, totaling over one million in 2023/2024. Engineering and mathematics rounded up the top three. German universities offer a variety of internationally recognized degrees, the Bachelor being the most frequently taken type of final exam.

Slow yearly salary increase

Among selected countries in the European Union, Germany ranks ninth in terms of average annual wages. All the same, when studying the change in average annual pay specifically in Germany during the last decade, a slow, but steady increase is visible year after year, until the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit in 2020. Since then, the average wage has been decreasing and in 2023 was around the same level as in 2017.