Lecturer salary Germany
What does a lecturer earn in Germany?

Precarious employment contracts, below-average income: The professional situation and salary of lecturers in adult education is often criticised. There are many different types of jobs in the sector: a range of full-time and part-time working models combined with different forms of freelance work. 

A lecturer is anyone who teaches at a university or institution of adult education. Outside the academic area, lecturers work at community colleges, public and church institutions and research institutes. Employment agency measures also offer important opportunities to jobseekers, as there are also many privately funded institutions which mainly provide in-house training.

Almost two-thirds of adult education teachers have an academic degree. A total of 17%, however, enter the profession with a degree as a master craftsman or technician. Part-time lecturers in particular tend to be general managing directors or founders of companies who pass on their practical knowledge in lectures and courses.

What do salaried lecturers earn in Germany?

The study "Staff in Further Education" conducted by the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE) in 2016 identifies four groups among the approximately 663,000 lecturers who do not teach at state universities.

Employees and owners of training institutions therefore have the best salary prospects. Nearly half of them earn more than €3,250 gross per month. The figures also show that more than half of lecturers in adult education teach on a part-time basis. 

For those are at the bottom of the income table, employer and employee representatives have agreed on a minimum hourly wage of €15.26 from 2018 onwards. This equates to a salary of €2,475.75 per month for a 39-hour week. This is not much, considering that half of all lecturers in postgraduate training hold a university degree and that full-time employees with a degree in Germany earn €4,836 gross on average.

In which sectors do salaried lecturers in Germany earn the most?

Salaried lecturers in adult education earn a wide range of different salaries. This generally depends on an individual's own negotiating skills and the type of employer. A DIE study conducted in 2014 revealed that privately funded institutions pay between €3,251 and €3,750 gross per month, while state funded institutions only pay between €2,251 and €2,750. 

How much do freelance lecturers earn in Germany?

About 70% of adult education teachers are freelancers. Half of those who are full-time self-employed earn less than €1,750 a month. Those who lecture for private companies earn between €1,751 and €2,250. Self-employed lecturers should in particular note the type of client they work for: The quarter of lecturers who earn a monthly salary of over €3,750 routinely work for business-related clients.

How much do lecturers at German universities earn?

Lecturers teaching at universities are paid in accordance with the federal states' collective agreement (TV-L) and will be assigned to one of the pay bands E13–E15, depending on the job specification and the lecturer's level of knowledge. Each of these groups has five levels of experience, which are automatically reached at different stages of an individual's career. The table values apply to the western federal states – apart from Hesse, which has its own collective agreement.

Detailed information about salaries in the research sector is available here.
Private lecturers who do not have a contract as a researcher or an honorary apprenticeship at a university will be required to provide free seminars or lectures in each semester – otherwise, they will lose their private lecturer title.

How does professional experience affect the salary or fee of lecturers?

As shown in the table above, a lecturer with a collective agreement automatically gets more pay after a certain period of time. For other employed lecturers, there are no reliable figures regarding the relationship between years in the profession and earnings. The ver.di database allows freelancers to make a rough estimate of how their fee will develop. An evaluation of the data of 196 freelancers shows that the fee rises slightly as experience grows. However, for part-time self-employed professionals, it remains constant over the years.