Welcome to the Berlin Salary Trends repo.
I have decided to move the landing page with FAQ and all the relevant links to the future Salary Trends projects to Handpicked Berlin, because it's not sustainable for me to maintain several different pages. After working on the last survey I also realised that open sourcing data in this case makes no sense.
You will find all the latest information and results related to the project here.
In case of questions, please approach me.
Thanks for showing interest!
Igor
in Berlin, 29.2.2024
- Report and a dashboard at handpickedberlin.com
- The Dashboard you missed in Berlin Salary Trends Survey at handpickedberlin.com
- Reddit - r/berlin release thread
- 20percent.berlin - #196: Pool IDs, Tesla expanding, Social workers
- Tech.eu - A survey of Berlin's thriving tech scene sheds light on average salaries
You can leave your email on this Google form to receive a reminder.
- 1061 responses, survey open: 2.6. - 2.7.
- 970 valid responses
- Why an anonymous survey?
- What is the goal and the benefit?
- What is the plan?
- How can you help and get involved?
- Who is "we"? Who is working on this?
- Where will the results be published?
- Who designed the survey?
- How can I use the data?
- License & Using Survey Data
- Data Privacy and Confidentiality Disclaimer
Discussing money is taboo. How many times did you tell your colleague about how much you earn? Yes, probably never. We, the employees, have platforms like Kununu, Glassdoor, and Levels.fyi that provide salary information, but the data is noisy, inconsistent and inaccurate.
On the other hand, employers often have access to robust benchmarking services that give them good visibility into market metrics such as the number of applications per position, expected salary levels, and more. Regarding salary negotiation, this clearly tilts the balance in favour of employers.
This anonymous survey will not magically level this playing field, but it will provide a platform for the honest sharing of salary information. Hopefully, it will help you see how you compare to others and see where you stand. Numbers matter; the higher the number of submissions, the lower the noise.
Let's lower the noise together.
Our goal is to provide consistent and recurring data collection and analysis.
This will, in turn:
- empower YOU to benchmark your salary against others in similar roles or industries, providing a clearer understanding of your market value,
- improve transparency and fairness in performance reviews and interviews,
- identify gaps within industries, roles or demographics,
- serve as a valuable resource for employers to optimize their remuneration practices.
Repeat the survey every six months or at least annually.
You can help:
- by participating,
- by spreading the word on social and elsewhere,
- by volunteering to help in other areas.
The idea originated in the issue #41 of a hobby newsletter handpicked for Berlin where a poll "Would you participate in an anonymous salary survey for Berlin 2023?" had a excellent response rate (83% yes with 310 votes). This is a hobby project without any budget.
Current team:
- Igor, handpickedberlin.com (design & execution of June 2023 survey)
- Navid, Looker dashboard technical implementation (June 2023)
- Akmal, Jupyter Notebook support and initial data analysis (June 2023)
- YOU, but you have not volunteered yet
Support is needed in the areas of:
- data visualisation,
- data analysis (e.g. Jupyter or other methods),
- methodology & questionnaire improvements (if the survey will be recurring),
- promotion (increasing the reach),
- validation of German translation of README.
Do you have relevant skills? Let me know!
- Raw data: the data is only available per request to avoid abuse, see the data folder and contact me
- Analysis: an analysis/report will also be published in a form of an article at handpickedberlin.com
Initally planned:
- Raw data (text prior to release in July 2023): the data are published in a cleaned
and uncleanedversion in this repo in accordance to Data privacy and confidentiality disclaimer (with measures taken to to prevent singling out)
The survey results are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). For usage and more info, see chapter License & Using Survey Data.
- Version June 2023: the survey is based on similar surveys with brevity in mind. It is also inspired by the European Social Survey and Destatis (Federal Statistical Office of Germany).
- You can use it to benchmark yourself against others in similar roles or industry. A dashboard is available here.
- The survey results are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)
The survey and the results are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA), which means that you are free to use and share the data for non-commercial purposes. Non-commercial use does not include usage on monetized websites, blogs, etc., that can indirectly generate revenue or drive traffic due to the exposure of this data. To use and share the data, you must provide attribution to the original source and any new works based on the data must also be licensed under the same terms. This license allows for the data to be freely used and shared while still providing some level of protection against commercial exploitation.
If you have any questions about how you can use the data or need to clarify whether your intended use is commercial or non-commercial, please refer to the CC BY-NC-SA license or contact the team for more information. In case of doubts, please ask.
Please be fair: for explicit permission for any commercial use (eg. articles with paywalls) please approach the team.
- Non-commercial use: A non-profit organization can use the survey results to create a report on industry salaries, provided they don't intend to make a profit from it, or drive substantial traffic for a monetized platform.
- Commercial use with permission: A consulting firm, a commercial website, a blog with ads, an influencer/consultant (LinkedIn & similar) can use the survey results to create a market research report if they obtain permission from the original source of the data.
- Use in a newspaper article: A newspaper can use the survey results to support an article on industry salaries if they attribute the data to the original source and the article is not for commercial purposes.
- Use behind a paywall: A news website can use the survey results to create a paywalled report on industry salaries if they negotiate a separate license with the original source of the data, which might involve paying a fee or agreeing to other conditions.
Introduction
This policy outlines how we collect, store, use, and protect your data during the Berlin Salary Survey.
GDPR Compliance
As the private entity administrators of this survey, we operate under the assumption that we do not process personal data as per the GDPR definition, given the anonymous design of the survey. We make every effort to avoid any potential singling out of individuals; this includes grouping data points and removing any potentially identifiable information. Only aggregated data sets ensuring k-anonymity (5 or more individuals in a group) will be published, and any data that could lead to identification will be removed from the dataset. All questions have been designed to avoid collecting unnecessary or excessive data to focus on data minimization.
Anonymous Survey and Your Privacy
The Berlin Salary Survey is conducted anonymously. We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, addresses, email addresses, or IP addresses unless you voluntarily provide such information in free form fields. These free form entries will be removed. Individual responses won't be singled out; the results will be published in cleaned format aggregate form ensuring that no singling out would be possible.
Cleaning in this sense means ensuring that "Roles" are not too specific (e.g. "Prime minister of Germany/Bundeskanzler" would be removed or if appropriate changed to "Elected official" or "Politician"). Similar to other positions: in general trying to avoid specificly named positions that could lead to people being identified.
Google Forms and Data Privacy
We use Google Forms for this survey. While we don't collect identifiable information, Google may technically access this data. If you are logged into a Google account while participating, Google might collect and use your information according to its own privacy policies. Thus, your responses may not be 100% anonymous from Google's perspective.
To limit the potential for Google's data collection when completing this survey, you may consider using your browser's incognito or private browsing mode. This mode prevents your browsing history from being stored and discards cookies after you close the incognito or private browsing window. By doing so, you reduce the chances of Google associating your survey responses with your Google account. However, this does not guarantee complete anonymity from Google's perspective, as they may still collect certain information during your session.
Your Participation is Voluntary
Participation in this survey is entirely voluntary. You have the freedom to not answer certain questions or withdraw from the survey at any time. However, please avoid sharing any sensitive information in free fields that you wouldn't want publicly associated with your responses.
Data Usage
The data collected will be used to create a public report on salary trends in Berlin. This report will be openly available, supporting transparency in salary discussions. If you consent to participate in this survey, you agree to this use of the data.
User Access and Correction of Data
Due to the anonymous nature of the survey, we cannot provide an option for participants to access or correct their data post-submission. This is because we cannot identify your specific responses unless you voluntarily identified yourself in any of the free text fields. Please review your answers carefully before submitting, as we can't facilitate modifications once the data is collected.
Data Storage and Retention
All data collected from the survey responses are stored in aggregated form indefinitely on this GitHub repository. This data will be stored securely and will be openly available for everyone to access under the license defined in the 'License & Usage of Survey Data' section. The collected data will be retained for historical reference and to track salary trends over time.
Consent to Participate
By proceeding with the survey, you confirm your understanding of these details and voluntarily consent to participate under these conditions.
Contact
If you have any concerns or questions regarding this policy, please feel free to contact us.