Would you be happier in a different German city?

A new ranking puts Erfurt on top and Berlin near the bottom. Here's why.

Jun 15, 2026

Personal News & Musings

🫣 Sometimes I’ll overshare and/or rant a bit.

I finally had an MRT scan on my knee, and it turns out it’s a bone bruise. What struck me most was how easy it all was: a quick orthopedic appointment, the scan done, and no surprise bill or worry about coverage. Which is why the proposed healthcare cuts further down sit uneasily with me. The same system that just sorted out my knee is the one now under real pressure.

On a brighter note, I finally have my electronic ID. No more carrying my passport around with my PR sticker inside, and best of all, no more queuing in the non-EU lines when I fly home to Germany. That’s a big win!

All this has me daydreaming, which brings me to this week’s headline. Every so often I wonder if I’d be happier in another German city, and for me it’s always Hamburg. So the Happiness Atlas, with smaller cities on top, landed close to home. And handily, DB just dropped a pile of €15 Hamburg to Berlin tickets, so I may be testing my theory soon.

Which is what this week’s poll is about - Would you move to a different German city to be happier? I’d love to know.

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Sound Off: Your Take on Germany

📊 Results of our weekly polls.

⁉️ Our last poll asked: Would you move to another European country for better take-home pay?

This poll attracted 123 votes and the results were surprisingly clear. Nearly half of respondents (47%) said they would move to another European country for better take-home pay if the right opportunity came along, while another 25% are already actively considering it. Only 21% felt Germany is still worth it despite the financial trade-offs, and 7% said they're already planning to leave.

One reader noted that falling immigration and rising rents are creating a worrying combination for Berlin employers who depend on international talent. If skilled workers increasingly feel they can build a better life elsewhere, compensation may become an even bigger factor in where people choose to live and work.

Germany currently ranks 9th in Europe for take-home pay after tax according to this recent ranking.

🫂 Take part in this week’s poll. If you have ever wondered whether life might feel better in a different German city, the 2026 Happiness Atlas is a gentle nudge to think it through, with Erfurt on top and the big, expensive cities further down than you might expect. It’s a reminder that a strong economy and a good life are not always the same thing - see what the rankings mean and where every city landed.

Last week, we asked if you would move to another European country for better take-home pay, but this week, we ask …

🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏽 Connect with others: Join our chat on Substack.

Companies Hiring Right Now

🇩🇪 5 German companies hiring right now.

This week, we’re featuring five German climate tech companies:

enerkii (Subscription solar power for factories)
Munich | 5 jobs
Energy product manager, founder’s associate, account executive.
🇬🇧 & 🇩🇪 | Hybrid
FION Energy (AI-optimized industrial battery storage)
Berlin | 2 jobs
IoT platform engineer, founding account executive.
🇬🇧 &/or 🇩🇪 | Onsite
Freshflow (AI produce replenishment platform)
Berlin | 11 jobs
Founder’s associate, back-end engineer, senior product manager.
🇬🇧 &/or 🇩🇪 | Onsite & remote
metergrid (Rooftop solar for apartment tenants)
Stuttgart, Hamburg, & Berlin | 4 jobs
Project manager - operations, team lead - operations, sales dev rep.
🇬🇧 & 🇩🇪 | Hybrid or remote (flexible)
Terra One (AI-operated grid-scale battery storage)
Berlin | 2 jobs
Head of power operations, account manager.
🇬🇧 & 🇩🇪 | Hybrid

👋🏼 That’s not all: See our weekly updated database of 400+ Berlin companies hiring right now.

Berlin Companies Hiring

Recently Funded Startups

🤑 German startups that recently raised new funding.

📊 Weekly Snapshot

Hot damn! Over this past week, 6 German startups across 5 locations collectively raised around €1.5 B in fresh funding.

5 of these startups are hiring for a whopping 258 roles:

GALVANY (Smart heat pump installation service) - €10 M
Berlin mainly | 21 jobs
General counsel/head of legal, accountant, senior data engineer.
🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Onsite —> both role dependent
Isar Aerospace (Builds and launches satellite rockets) - €270 M
Ottobrunn | 70 jobs
Mission analysts engineer, manager electronics engineering, project manager.
🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Onsite mostly
Neura Robotics (Builds cognitive humanoid robots) - €1.2 B
Metzingen & Munich | 152 jobs
AI data engineer, engineering manager, key account manager.
🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Onsite mostly
Tawo (Builds data centers and infrastructure) - €4.5 M
Berlin | 14 jobs
Electrical planner, head of finance, student trainee - people operations.
🇩🇪 &/or 🇬🇧 | Onsite mostly
Tokura (Develops outpatient surgery centers) - Undisclosed
Berlin | 1 job
Founding Engineer
🇩🇪 | Onsite

🧐 Key Insights

What this week’s funding rounds tell us:

Five of the six startups build or install physical things in the real world like rockets, robots, heat pumps, surgery centers, and data center infrastructure. Hardware and deep tech are back in a big way, and these jobs are mostly onsite because you can’t assemble a rocket from your kitchen table.
Climate and energy continue to dominate, but the angle is shifting. GALVANY and Tawo are both energy plays, but from opposite ends. One helps households cut heating bills, the other builds the power-hungry infrastructure that AI runs on. It’s a snapshot of Germany's twin pressures right now - decarbonizing homes while racing to build compute capacity.
Funding size tells you what kind of company you are joining. This week is a clean lesson in reading the signals. Big raises (Neura & Isar) means structured teams, established processes, and clearer career ladders, while smaller raises means you are early, scrappy, and shaping things as you go. Neither is better, so choose your own adventure.

💸 Don’t skip the list: See the 250 startups tracked this year with zero paywalls on one single page. Bookmark it and check back weekly.

Funded German Startups

Job Search/ Work Life Tips

🙌 Weekly career tips to keep you sane in Germany.

A roundup of some great career advice articles about getting out of career ruts, how to really land a job, and how to negotiate with the best of them:

In a recent newsletter, we mentioned that only 11% of Germans are feeling engaged at work. Here are four practical tips to get out of a career rut.
Do you send thank you notes after job interviews in Germany? We recommend it. One American woman landed a high paying job by sending a 90 day onboarding plan, outlining what she’d achieve in that time.
When you get your next job offer, we recommend negotiating your salary and total compensation package. Leverage these five tips to negotiate like a professional.

If you want help improving your CV or job applications for the German market, I’ve got you. 👉🏼 Learn more or book a session here.

Germany Life Hacks

🥨 Things to make life in Deutschland (a little bit) better.

Hot tip: If you have dental insurance, cleanings & checkups are fully reimbursed. Did you know you can make a claim for professional teeth cleanings with your health insurance once per calendar year? I submitted my claims on Friday and on the same day, received confirmation that both reimbursements were on the way. Now, I’m walking away €40 richer. Note, the reimbursement amount varies by Krankenkassen.
Recommended newsletters: 20% Berlin & Smart Living in Germany.
Weekly deals: 🚿 If the hard water in Berlin is destroying your skin and hair, try Hello Klean. Over the past 18 months I’ve been using their filtered shower head, I’ve seen big improvements. The increased water pressure is also a bonus.

Featured Germany Life Guide(s)

🔊 Guides to help you settle in Germany.

You may have seen ads promising that Germany will pay you to study for free. The truth is more complicated, so I wrote this guide to give you the honest picture. It explains who really qualifies for the Bildungsgutschein, how to apply, and how to find a good school, so you do not waste your time or get misled.
The job market is changing fast, and it can feel scary not knowing where to focus. I made this guide to give you something solid to hold onto, featuring 25 careers that are growing in Germany this year. You’ll see honest salary numbers, where the jobs are, and tips for changing paths if you want to.
Good research can be the thing that gets you the job, and it can also save you from a workplace that would make you miserable. This guide walks you through 10 clear steps to understand any German company, write applications that show real interest, and ask smart questions in your interviews.

ℹ️ More where that came from:

60+ guides on living and working in Germany.
Stay tuned! A new podcast episode is coming soon. In the meantime, see our past episodes.

Our Events (+ Other Events)

🎟️ A weekly event round-up.

This week’s Berlin event round-up is focused on moments that get you away from screens and out there connecting with people, enjoying art, and experiencing leisure.

Jun 20: Philosophy Salon at SEE OUR VISION in Berlin reimagines the old tradition of the philosophical salon for modern city life, with three rounds of small-group conversation, reshuffled groups so you meet someone new each round, and drinks afterward to keep the ideas going.
Jun 28: 1-Hour Reading Rave at Weinbergspark in Berlin is The Offline Club's first reading event in the city, a laid-back hour of phones-off reading on the grass with live music, open to anyone who wants to slow down. Come alone or bring a friend. Free with RSVP, starts at 11:30.
Jul 7: Belonging Without Othering in Berlin brings together organisers, artists, educators, researchers, and curious neighbours for an evening of honest conversation about belonging. Expect shared tables, open dialogue, and meeting new people. Pay what you can, suggested €15.

📅 Subscribe to our calendar to receive event alerts from The Berlin Life as they happen.

News in Germany

🗞️ The inside scoop on what’s happening in Germany.

ℹ️ General

Foodwatch runs an annual competition where you can vote on Germany’s most misleading foods of the year. Think gummies to spice up your sex life and matcha yogurt with only … 0.1% matcha. Read the overview and vote here.
2025’s most popular baby names in Germany were once again Noah and Sophia. Mohammed remained in the top three across five German states.
DB released 1000s of €15 tickets for journeys between Hamburg and Berlin. Book your tickets now!
Berlin’s popular burger chain, Burgermeister, is going big by expanding to Vienna. Mocha Milk Bar on Karl-Marx Alle also reopened recently - watch this video offering a look at the location’s storied history.
Berlin Club Memes just threw some serious trillionaire shade at Elon Musk. 😂

📈 Politics & Economy

Europe’s rearmament is reshaping German industry, with Deutz pivoting from farm engines to military ones and Mercedes-Benz moving into anti-drone vehicles.
Berlin’s ninth annual Creative Bureaucracy Festival brought together public servants showing how a functioning, more empathetic state can be built, from a mayor who made his town hall paperless to a Dutch method that saves money simply by listening to the people the system is meant to help.
SoftBank is reportedly in early talks to put over $300 million into a roughly $800 million round for Munich’s Agile Robots, which already employs more than 3,200 people across Germany, China, and India. This fast-growing industrial AI company is one to watch if you’re after robotics or engineering roles.
Staff at Berlin-based Pleo were affected by recent layoffs.
Healthcare workers and unions recently protested against a reform that would cut the services covered by statutory insurance, limit paid sick leave, and raise co-payments, as insurers face a deficit expected to reach 15 billion euros by 2027.
German students are protesting after a promised increase to BAföG student aid was shelved, with much of the anger aimed at Research Minister Dorothee Bär, who suggested students are “privileged” and do not really need more support.
Fuel discounts in Germany will conclude by month end and not be extended any further.

👩‍⚕️ Immigration & Labour Developments

Germany’s happiness comes in at about €92,000 annually, a figure only 10% of the population achieves. Meanwhile, the “median gross salary (before tax) for 2025, including bonuses, was €54,066.” More at The Local (paywalled).
Ever wondered if you are being paid fairly? New EU rules would give you the right to find out, but Germany has missed the deadline to bring them in (because of course!), delaying salary transparency even as women earn 15.6% less per hour on average.

💃🏻 Fun, Interesting, Thoughtful, and/or Useful

Discover how the Stasi secretly built East Germany’s only arcade machine at a Berlin exhibition running until June 30.
At a German university, volunteers are sorting and transcribing more than 60,000 donated love letters dating back to the 1700s. The group even meets monthly to read them aloud and discuss the stories with one another.
Ever wondered what €53,000 a night gets you? Germany’s most expensive hotel suite, Munich’s Ludwig Suite, tops a list of the country’s priciest stays, alongside Hamburg’s Fairmont Vier Jahreszeiten at €8,000 and Berlin’s Hotel Adlon at around €10,000.
With Pride season here, a guide to LGBTIQ+ Berlin’s bars, clubs, and rainbow neighbourhoods.

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