Where is the main job market for information technology in Germany?

[infotech]

I work in IT within Finance and Banking as contractor in London.

Generally in most of the countries, the main market is the capital. But in Germany, for historical reasons, I don't believe it would be Berlin, but Frankfurt.

Any thoughts? Anyone who has worked in this field in Germany as contractor or permanent? Did you manage with or without fluency in German? How limiting is the lack of German within IT in Frankfurt?

Cheers!

[Milestone]

I worked for Tier1IB on IT deployment in their Frankfurt office. I only went over there a couple of times, for cutovers, but the Local IT lead was English and had been living in Frankfurt for 3-4 years. He spoke little German, so you can get by but obviously helps to make an effort. Agree that main financial hub is Frankfurt.

[stefanp]

I'm a native German and I have worked in Germany as permanent employee and contractor in the IT sector.

I agree that the financial main centre is Frankfurt, but for IT in general there is no clear main job market. You will find loads of jobs in pretty much every one of the bigger cities. Berlin is particularly known for its vibrant start-up scene, Cologne has a lot of media companies and is home to Germany's largest private broadcaster RTL, in nearby Bonn there is T-Mobile and Deutsche Post/DHL, just to name a few. Munich and Hamburg have major company headquarters as well, so they will have IT jobs, too...

Not speaking German will definitely keep the more traditional and less international companies from employing you, however I wouldn't expect any problems in Frankfurt's big financial corporations or companies of similar size and culture.

[Martin at NixonWilliams]

I work in IT within Finance and Banking as contractor in London.

Generally in most of the countries, the main market is the capital. But in Germany, for historical reasons, I don't believe it would be Berlin, but Frankfurt.

Any thoughts? Anyone who has worked in this field in Germany as contractor or permanent? Did you manage with or without fluency in German? How limiting is the lack of German within IT in Frankfurt?

Cheers!

I don't have my own experience but a good friend of mine's uncle who I also know quite well works as a contractor for PFW Aerospace in Munich, he has contracted in Munich for various companies for over 20 years. He went there short term initially knowing very little German, but loved it and hasn't looked back since. He isn't fluent in German even to this day (his German wife speaks to him in English) so that isn't an issue.

I hope this helps.

Martin