How many English job ads in Germany still require German?

Key findings

• More than one in four English-language ads require German. 220 of 794 postings written in English ask for German at B1 level or higher.
• When they do, they mean it. 80% of those ask for fluent (C1), near-native or native German. Only 19% settle for B2.
• Almost nobody says “no German needed”. Just 16 of 1,331 postings (1.2%) state it explicitly. Most English-friendly jobs simply don't mention German.
• The role matters more than the city. In software and DevOps, German is rarely required; in sales, customer success and legal roles it almost always is.
• Many ads don't say. 38% of English-language ads make no clear statement about German at all.

Source: Berjobs analysis of active job postings from the employers we track, as of 29 September 2026. How we count

What English-language ads actually ask for

We sorted every English-language posting by what its requirements section says about German. A job counts as English-friendly when German is optional (“a plus”, “nice to have”), explicitly not needed, or not mentioned in an ad that asks for English.

The typical wording is short and easy to miss at the end of a long ad: “Fluent in German and English”, “Fluency in English and German required”, “Native-level German proficiency is required for this role.” A job title can say it too — “DACH”, “German-speaking” or “(German)” in the title nearly always means German is required. Our guide to German requirements in job ads explains each phrase.

Where German is still required, by role

Language requirements follow the job, not the company. The same employer can hire software engineers in English and account executives who must speak German with customers.

Customer-facing roles — sales, customer success, consulting, legal and compliance — require German in most postings, because the customers, contracts and regulators are German. Engineering, data, DevOps and security sit at the other end. If you don't speak German yet, that's where the realistic options are; see English-speaking tech jobs in Germany.

“No German required” is rare — and that's the problem

Only 16 postings in our data say outright that German isn't needed. That matches a much larger dataset: Indeed's Hiring Lab found that fewer than 3% of job postings in Germany explicitly said German wasn't required, in the twelve months to August 2024.

But among the 248 English-friendly jobs we found, 59% never mention German at all and 34% call it “a plus”. Searching for “no German required” finds a sliver of them. Searching for “English” finds all of them — mixed in with the ads that require fluent German.

By city

For the cities with at least 100 postings in our data, the share of all postings that are English-friendly:

• Berlin: 20% English-friendly, 47% require German (767 postings)
• Munich: 15% English-friendly, 53% require German (341 postings)
• Hamburg: 25% English-friendly, 69% require German (113 postings)

City differences mostly reflect which companies and roles are based where. Berlin has the most English-friendly openings in absolute terms; see English-speaking jobs in Berlin. Other cities have too few postings in our data for a fair comparison.

How we count

• Postings: 1,331 active, de-duplicated job postings in Germany from the 40 employers Berjobs currently tracks, read from their public job boards (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Personio). Snapshot of 29 September 2026.
• English-language ad: the posting text is predominantly English (794 postings).
• Language requirement: our rules read each requirement clause by clause — which language a qualifier belongs to (“fluent English and basic German”), section headings (“Nice to have”), CEFR levels, negations, and signals in the title. Mentions that aren't about speaking German (“German law”, “German market”, “German language courses” as a benefit) are ignored. The stricter reading wins.
• Accuracy: in a manual review of 50 randomly chosen English-language ads classified as “German required”, about nine in ten were clearly correct; the rest were borderline or misread. Errors in both directions are possible.
• Limits: the employers we track lean towards technology companies and scale-ups, mostly in Berlin and Munich. These figures describe that slice of the market — which is also where most English-speaking jobs are — not every job in Germany. We publish aggregates only, never company-level figures.