Gehaltsrechner: Wie viel verdienen Sie im Vergleich zu anderen Führungskräften?

To become a top earner in Germany, one should generally take on personal responsibility in personnel management. Although more companies are also promoting career development and attracting experts with higher salaries than before, Stepstone's analysis of Job platform data shows that even someone who manages a small team of up to four employees has more than twice the chance of earning a six-figure salary compared to someone without leadership responsibility.

However, in which industries do executives earn the most, and how do location, company size, or professional experience affect the income of people with personnel responsibilities? Stepstone has exclusively analyzed this for the Handelsblatt. The evaluation is based on around 1.3 million salary data from employees who provided information on Stepstone from 2022 to 2026.

Stepstone considers only salaries of people with personnel responsibility for the evaluation, which it presents as a gross annual median salary. This is the value at which there are as many lower-paid positions as higher-paid ones. Industries: Firms that pay executives particularly well are banks, insurance companies, and the IT sector.

Chefs in these sectors earn the most, with the median salary in banks being 96,000 euros, significantly higher than in hotels or restaurants, where executives earn just 50,000 euros on average. Depending on the position within a bank, salaries can also significantly exceed 96,000 euros. A Chief Technology Officer earns a median of around 143,000 euros, while a head of a legal department earns 132,500 euros on average.

In insurance firms, the median salary for executives is 88,500 euros, and in IT companies, it is 85,250 euros. "Several factors come together in these industries," says Christina Langer, a labor market expert at Stepstone. "High productivity and value creation per head, as well as special regulatory and technological requirements."

Executives in these industries often need several years of study or special expertise and are in high demand internationally, which is reflected in their salaries. "When leading such an environment, one usually manages larger budgets, more complex processes, and higher risks than in less regulated industries," Langer explains. These executive positions offer very high salaries.

The federal average for employees with personnel responsibility is 64,000 euros, according to Stepstone. This figure includes both high earners and comparatively low-paid managerial positions. Kantor chiefs or head chefs, for example, earn a median of around 45,000 euros. On the other hand, Chief Physicians earn a median of 221,500 euros.

Leaders of departments such as Treasury, Asset Management, or Innovation Management, as well as Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) or Chief Product Officers (CPOs), earn very well, though less than doctors. Many companies, however, are currently cutting many middle-management positions and are often unwilling to pay high salaries.

This is a trend that Anna Lüttgen, head of recruitment at the staffing firm Hays, also observes. "Middle and upper management executives are often the head of the water in the corporate central offices that are currently being downsized," she says. Lüttgen therefore advises executives in salary negotiations not to rely on their previous hierarchical position.

Instead, they should highlight the performance of their department and their own effectiveness as a manager. "Pioneering the restructuring of my team" is currently a stronger argument than: 'I managed 80 employees.' It is also important for candidates to showcase their experience with transformations and demonstrate that they can use AI effectively.

The highest median pay for executives is found in Hamburg, where the median salary is 71,750 euros. This is due to the presence of numerous large companies with relatively high salaries in the city, including the aerospace company Airbus, large logistics firms like Hapag-Lloyd, and trade giants like the Otto Group. Hesse, where Frankfurt is located and where banks are prominent, also has relatively high median salaries.

At the other end of the spectrum are eastern German federal states like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt, where executives earn comparatively low salaries.