phd candidate salaries in germany

phd candidate salaries in germany

Calculated on the basis of a full-time position, doctoral students receive between 46,000 and 56,000 euros gross per year, depending on how much experience the doctoral student already has. It should be noted that an employment contract often only covers 50% of the positions.

  • The tariff structure for the salary of scientists and scholars in Germany is very transparent. If a doctoral student is a research assistant at a state university or research institution, he/she is automatically a public sector employee and his/her salary is therefore regulated by a collective agreement.
  • Depending on the institution, this is either the Collective Agreement for the Public Sector (TVöD) or the Collective Agreement for the Public Sector of the Länder (TV-L). These collective agreements are renegotiated every one or two years.
  • All state universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutes thus pay comparable wages. As government-funded research organisations, the Max Planck Society, the Fraunhofer Society and the Helmholtz Association also follow the regulations of the collective agreement for the public sector with regard to employment, pay and social benefits.
  • Doctoral students are classified in the lowest salary group E13 for scientists. Since salary group 13 has a very wide range (from newly started doctoral students to experienced postdocs), the salary groups are differentiated according to experience levels. Since 2018, all public sector wage agreements have differentiated between six experience levels, each with increasing duration.
  • Doctoral students starting at experience level 1 should therefore make sure that their contract runs for at least 12 months, as employment contracts of less than one year are not considered relevant professional experience. In the event of a new position, you will be re-grouped in experience level 1, regardless of the length of time you have already worked at that level. This is true even if the change of contract is made seamlessly at the same institution. The problem, however, is that employment contracts at universities are often limited to a very short term. Around half of the contracts of academic staff in the doctoral phase are shorter than 12 months.
  • The Federal Report on Young Academics and Scientists of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of 2017 points out that the average monthly net income of doctoral students is 1,261 euros per month. This is at the lowest end of the official standard salaries.


Salaries of doctoral students in Euro per month according to collective agreements, July 2020

the salaries are based on 100% employment


Collective agreement
Level 1
Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
E13 (TVöD) 3.996,72 ¤ 4.335,42 ¤ 4.685,32 ¤ 5.093,03 ¤ 5.586,51 ¤ 5.842,91 ¤
E13 (TV-L) 4.002,26 ¤ 4.329,43 ¤ 4.560,37 ¤ 5.009,04 ¤ 5.629,26 ¤ 5.798,14 ¤



Source: academics.de, public service.info

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