Top 40 English professions in demand in Germany
When the sky above Düsseldorf gets grey, I like to dig into data. You can learn a lot about your job prospects in Germany, by looking past the overall job numbers.
In this article you find the top 40 “English” professions in demand in Germany. I will also share my advice on how to use this information to transform your job search in Germany.
The data is provided by my partner Textkernel B.V. For this analysis I used job ads that have been publish at over 13.400 job portals, career blogs and companies’ website in Germany. All the data is from 3rd quarter of 2019.
For this analysis I look only at fulltime employment with an unlimited contract. I also exclude all jobs ads that require low or no education.
Important disclaimer: The data is collected via an algorithm. The software can discover if a job ad is in English. It cannot discover if the job description contains phrases like “German required” etc.
You should understand that the real number of “English” jobs available in Germany is even lower than what my analysis suggests.
That said, let’s look at the German job market as of today. (October 2019)
Half a million open jobs – but do international professionals benefit?
545.348 fulltime jobs have been advertised in Germany in the third quarter of 2019. Of these 36.124 job ads were (also) in English. Remember: A lot of them might contain “fluent German required”.
The English job market in Germany is therefore 6,6 percent of the total German job market. That is a hopeful sign as four years ago the number was only half of today’s level.
80.130 German employers offer fulltime jobs with unlimited contracts. From this number only 2.885 advertise their jobs in English. That’s 3,6%. Three times more than four years ago – but still: 96% of all German employers don’t even reach out to English speaking professionals.
(At the same time over half of German employers complain that “lack of skilled labour” has cost them business and is the biggest threat to their success.)
What should worry you: The top 10 employers that hire in English offer ten percent of all English jobs in Germany. Here is the total number of active English job ads with each of these companies:
Amazon.com, Inc | 435 |
Ratiopharm GmbH | 266 |
SAP AG | 220 |
Charles River Laboratories International | 197 |
Haema | 194 |
Microsoft Deutschland GmbH | 172 |
Robert Bosch GmbH | 136 |
N26 | 121 |
ARTS Deutschland GmbH | 117 |
Siemens AG | 115 |
Campana & Schott | 112 |
BASF SE | 109 |
Oracle | 106 |
The top 100 employers that hire in English offer together 27,4% of all English jobs in Germany. That is worrying. You don’t look for “a job” – you look for a job in your profession. Which limits your potential employer to an even smaller number.
Consider this: Only 70 professions currently over more than 100 individual job advertisements in English. Meaning: For most professions you can find less than a hundred German employers who offer jobs to foreigners in English!
There is way more data that I could share with you today.
The main insight that I want you to take away: If you want to find a great job in Germany, then you need to expand your search past the “English” job market in Germany.
You need to apply for positions that are advertised in German. Which means that you need to be able to make a strong case for hiring you, an English-speaking person, in a completely German speaking environment.
Your best chance to convince a German employer to hire you in English and allow you to learn German “on the job”: Explain how you can help the employer reach her or his goal better than anyone else.
How do you do that?
That’s what I teach in my “Meet Your Future Boss course”. It’s a step by step guide, that also deals with all the usual objections to hiring “foreigners” in Germany. (Language, Education, work experience, culture etc. etc.)
Which leaves you with one little problem: It’s good if you know how to argue your case in a conversation with the hiring manager.
But how do you get your future boss to talk to you in the first place? Because, let’s be honest: Most expats never hear anything else from a potential employer than the automated rejection letter that explains to them that they “need fluent German” or that they are “overqualified”.
Well, the “Meet Your Future Boss” course deals with this problem as well. In this course I will teach you how to ignore HR and reach out to the hiring manager directly.
I wish you success.
Chris
Chris Pyak
Author
“How To Win Jobs & Influence Germans”
PS: If you need more personal guidance, feel free to book my Expats Job Offer Guarantee. For the rest of the year there are now only six spots available.
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