QA Engineer: salary 2026 at a glance
Salary at a glance: this is what QA Engineer earn in Germany – from 214 job ads with a stated salary and 66 salary data sets.
Median, gross
€54,952
€36,529 lower 10 %
€79,932 upper 10 %
How salaries are distributed
Each column = number of salary figures per €5,000 band · basis 280
You
- Between lower and upper 10 % (€36,529 – €79,932)
- Edges
Salary rises with experience
Median and middle 50 % per level · jobs + data sets
€40,500
Junior
36,000 – 47,000
21 values
€56,500
Mid-level
49,500 – 64,000
+40 % · 195 values
€56,500
Senior
51,500 – 64,500
+40 % · 41 values
€56,500
Lead/Principal
50,500 – 58,500
+40 % · 15 values
Salary by federal state
Median of the salary data sets for QA Engineer per federal state. The samples are small here – read the figures as a trend, not a guarantee.
- North Rhine-Westphalia €55,000 n = 9
- Bavaria €53,000 n = 7
- Hamburg €51,500 n = 5
- Baden-Württemberg €50,500 n = 4
- Berlin €47,500 n = 5
- Hesse €47,000 n = 5
- Schleswig-Holstein €46,500 n = 4
- Saarland €46,000 n = 5
- Lower Saxony €44,500 n = 4
- Thuringia €42,000 n = 4
- Saxony €41,500 n = 4
- Rhineland-Palatinate €40,500 n = 5
- Brandenburg €39,000 n = 5
Open positions as QA Engineer
All in the job search
Senior QA Engineer - Integration (m/w/d)
€49,000 – €68,000
above median
Quality Engineer / Qualitätsingenieur (m/w/d)
€70,000 – €88,000
above median
HIL Test Engineer (m/w/d)
€50,000 – €80,000
above median
Praktikant (m/w/d) im Bereich Supplier Quality Assurance - Konzepterstellung Shopfloor-Management
Salary not stated
Supplier Quality Engineer (m/w/d)
€70,000 – €85,000
above median
Senior Quality Engineer (f/m/d) - SAP S/4HANA Product Compliance
€47,000 – €66,000
above median
QA Engineer: job profile and outlook
QA Engineers ensure the quality of software products by systematically detecting defects, developing test strategies and taking responsibility for the entire quality assurance process within the development team. They work closely with developers and product owners to ensure that software fulfils requirements and ensures a high level of user satisfaction. Core competencies include experience with various testing methods such as functional testing, regression testing, integration testing and exploratory testing. Knowledge of test management tools, bug tracking systems and agile methods is just as important as an analytical understanding of business logic and user requirements. Increasingly, automation skills and API testing experience are also expected. Salaries for QA Engineers are competitive and are increasing especially with development towards test automation and performance testing. Software companies, financial service providers and e-commerce platforms, where errors have a direct business impact, offer the most attractive salaries. The increasing importance of software quality in regulated industries is also driving demand, with career paths leading from Junior QA Engineer to Senior QA Engineer to QA Lead, Test Architect or Head of Quality Assurance. Many QA Engineers are also developing in the direction of test automation, performance engineering or DevOps. The growing complexity of software systems makes quality assurance a discipline that is in constant demand.
Similarly paid roles
Same axis – directly comparable
- QA Engineer this role €54,952
- Backend developer €54,516 Compare with Backend developer
- Test automator €54,483 Compare with Test automator
- Fullstack Developer €54,330 Compare with Fullstack Developer
- Python developer €54,286 Compare with Python developer
- ERP Consultant €53,992 Compare with ERP Consultant
- Business Intelligence Analyst €53,941 Compare with Business Intelligence Analyst
€30,000 – €90,000 · bar = lower to upper 10 %, line = median
How we calculate
- Sources: job ads with a stated salary that are assigned to a role, plus recorded salary data sets. Currently 6,380 active IT jobs state their salary.
- Range: lower 10 % to upper 10 % (P10–P90), so that individual outliers do not shift the limits. The median splits the values into two equal halves.
- Plausible: only gross annual salaries between €15,000 and €250,000; placeholders and monthly values are excluded.
- Calculator: role median × experience factor × federal state factor. The factors come from 4,290 salary data sets – each as a ratio to the median of its role, so the mix of roles does not distort them.
- Minimum size: breakdowns by skill, city and work model only appear from 20 values; every figure states its basis.
Earning more starts with the right job.
Open positions as QA Engineer – with salary at a glance.