Know your worth.
Most SAP professionals negotiate one number. The package has ten. Do you know the benchmark for your role — and what to ask for besides fixed salary and bonus?
The package is bigger than the salary line
- Fixed and variable — how the bonus is actually calculated, what triggers it, and what happens to it in year one.
- The company car question — when to raise it, how to ask, and the car-allowance alternative that is often worth more.
- Pension, insurance and benefits — employer pension contributions, health top-ups, and the items that quietly differ most between employers.
- Training and certification budget — in the SAP market, a funded learning path is compensation; treat it as such in the negotiation.
- Flexibility as currency — remote share, working-time models, sabbatical options: negotiable, valuable, and rarely asked for explicitly.
- The exit terms — notice periods and non-competes are part of the package too; you negotiate them best before you sign.
The benchmark question
"Am I paid at market?" has a real answer — but it depends on module, role level, region, industry and language market, which is why generic salary tables mislead. In a benchmark session we place your profile against current market reality, look at your full package rather than the headline number, and prepare the negotiation: what to ask for, in which order, and what to trade.
What the public data actually shows
Public German-market data illustrates why: aggregated comparisons report SAP consultants and developers in Germany earning roughly €55,000 to €145,000 gross per year, depending on module, experience, region and employer type (sap-gehalt.de). A range that spans almost a factor of three is not a benchmark — it is proof that your position inside that range is what needs determining. Free public reports such as the Ankerkopf SAP-Gehälter-Report resolve the picture by module, topic and role — a useful first calibration before an individual session takes your full package, industry and negotiation position into account.
Interview still ahead of you? Start with interview coaching — the same preparation, one conversation earlier.
Engagements are contracted through Executive Clarity (Deborah Born). Benchmark sessions are individual — no numbers published, no data resold.