GDCh members can find further information on salaries for young professionals at MyGDCh. You can access the area reserved for members by entering your membership number and password at the top left of this page. You will find the starting salaries under "special offers" and then "salaries".
In the GDCh graduate brochure "Starting a career in chemistry" you will find overview articles on the topics of working life, starting a career and the future as well as the chapter on money with information on starting salaries for chemistry graduates as well as scholarships and research funding for young scientists.A rough overview of the starting salaries for chemists in the public sector, within and outside the chemical industry can be found in the following chart and the further information on this page.
It should be noted that this chart serves as a guide the first bar can be seen as the "minimum" and the last bar as the absolute maximum.
Only if all requirements are met and the fit between your own qualifications and the job advertisement is optimal, should the maximum value be given as the salary expectation.
The official annual salaries for academic technical and scientific employees in the chemical industry are negotiated by the Verband angestellter Akademiker und leitender Angestellter der chemischen Industrie (VAA) and the Bundesarbeitgeberverband Chemie (BAVC). For October 2025 it was determined that the minimum annual salary for the second year of employment will remain unchanged. This means for 2025:
2025 and 2026:
for employees with a diploma/master's degree: 74,050 euros;
for employees with a doctorate: 86,075 euros.
For the first year of employment, the salary can be freely agreed between employer and employee as before. They tend to be lower than the amount for the second year of employment. Technical and scientific employees with a Master's degree are generally categorised as graduate employees.
Note
It should be noted that many companies, especially small and medium-sized companies, that employ chemists are not represented in the German Chemical Employers' Association and are therefore not bound by its collective agreements. Salaries there are usually lower. This is also the case in most companies outside the chemical industry.
Tariffs do not apply to experienced chemists. Performance and success determine the categorisation.
In the public sector, graduates with a university degree are generally classified according to the corresponding TVöD or TVL pay scales
.The corresponding pay groups are regulated in the respective collective agreements
Each pay group is divided into six levels (1-2 basic levels, 3-6 development levels). Through professional experience with the same employer you can be promoted to the next higher level after a specified period of time. The pay groups 13 - 15 are reserved for employees with a scientific university degree/master's degree A doctorate does not lead to classification in a higher pay scale group.
HAW graduates (formerly FH) and chemistry bachelors are categorised in E9 to E12. Entry-level positions with a higher level of responsibility (personnel responsibility/budget responsibility) are paid at pay grade 14.
Which collective agreement is binding and which pay group is intended for the position can usually be found in the job advertisement. The collective agreements and the corresponding pay groups (classification) as well as collective pay agreements (amount of salary in the respective group) are publicly available on the Internet.
For the first time, the AG Junge Lebensmittelchemie has conducted a salary survey on starting salaries for food chemists
For those starting their careers as food chemists a range of salaries from 40,000 to 45,000 euros gross per year was found
All analyses and further information on the survey can be found in the "MyGDCh" section under "Salaries for chemists".
| Country | Information |
|---|---|
Austria | since 2012, information on salary must already be provided in the job advertisement |
Switzerland | Swiss Federal Statistical Office |
USA | American Chemical Society |
| other countries | For questions about salaries for experienced professionals abroad, the chemical companies of the respective country can provide information |
Salaries in the chemical industry for chemical specialists with a background in training are regulated by the collective labour agreements of the respective associated countries. These are negotiated by the company representative (BAVC; Federal Employers' Association of the Chemical Industry) and the employee representative (IG BCE; Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union).
Classification is based on pay groups, similar to the public sector. The collective wage agreements with the respective regulated income for the corresponding group are freely available on the Internet, as for the public sector.
In the GDCh graduate brochures "Professional prospects in chemistry" (explicitly for specialists with a training background) and "Career entry in chemistry" you will find useful information on career entry and experience reports from career starters as well as detailed overview articles on the topic of salaryA list of pay grades in the chemical industry can be found below:
| Pay grade | Explanation |
|---|---|
E6 | Prerequisite 3-year completed Vocational training or employees who demonstrate comparable skills through the corresponding number of years of practical experience, e.g.B. Chemical technician, pharmaceutical technician |
E7 | Employees who have skills that are above those of E6 (completed training that requires a greater degree of abstraction of the learning content) and are carried out in accordance with instructions, e.g. chemical laboratory technicians.E.g. chemical laboratory technicians e.g. carrying out routine analyses, experimental procedures or preparative work according to standard methods |
E8 | E7 qualification plus regular difficult activities that are carried out independently. Furthermore, you need specialised knowledge through additional in-company training to carry out these activities. This is usually preceded by a longer period of employment in E7, e.g. complicated equipment controls for spectrometers or gas chromatographs or work with multi-stage preparations |
E9 | E8 plus higher-level commercial or technical activities that are carried out according to instructions and which either require completed function-related training and further training or who have acquired additional job-specific specialist knowledge. For example: revising/creating process instructions, optimisation work in relation to production-related activities, administrative tasks |
E10 | The prerequisite is high-quality technical tasks that are carried out independently in accordance with general instructions. Vocational training with additional qualification as a chemical technician or comparable is required. For example: optimising or developing new test procedures or methods, production support, monitoring work processes in the technical centre coupled with special expertise in analysis or synthesis |
E11 | Employees with successful completion of a technical college entrance qualification, e.g. engineers or comparable qualification.e.g. engineers or laboratory technicians with high-level technical tasks who also have personnel responsibility and/or responsibility for cost centres and budgets. |
The following chart provides a rough overview of the starting salaries (monthly salaries) of chemical specialists with an educational background in the public sector and in the chemical industry. Another option is a survey by the Hans Böckler Foundation at lohnspiegel.de.
* without pro rata annual special payment
**in each federal state with highest and lowest pay scale
Information on the income survey for members can be found here.