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Developer insights: hidden champions/cities for software developers in Germany
Not everybody needs to found their startup in Berlin. Don’t believe the regional potential? The numbers don’t lie.
Ever heard of Konstanz? Braunschweig? Bielefeld? Aachen? No???
I would strongly advise you to pay attention. When I did my recent analyses on digital hubs I went with the “known” set of cities and centers, based on what the studies and tech scene has been identifying. This is not wrong to do.
However, my mind went into overdrive. What if I’m overlooking something? I dug deeper into the numbers and true to my suspicion, I found some gems!
11 hidden digital champions
There are 11 hubs that have not yet gotten the attention they deserve. Take a look at this map with a number of software developers higher than 1,500 as identified by the Federal Agency for Employment:
- Oldenburg: 0.59% — 1,650
- Braunschweig-Goslar: 0.96% — 2,690
- Bielefeld-Herford: 1.39% — 3,920
- Paderborn: 0.74% — 2,070
- Erfurt: 0.58% — 1,620
- Aachen: 1.77% — 4,980
- Bamberg: 0.55%–1,540
- Würzburg: 0.63% — 1,770
- Regensburg: 0.67% — 1,880
- Ingolstadt: 0.60% — 1,700
- Konstanz-Ravensburg: 1.12% — 3,140
Roundabout 9% of developers in Germany are located in these centers
All of them represent 0.5 to 1.8% of all software developers in Germany. This doesn’t sound like much. But when we consider that Munich also ”only” harbors about 10% of all engineers in Germany, this is quite impressive.
As previously seen, federal states like Northern-Rhine Westphalia and Bavaria are consistently underestimated.
While Germany has a significantly higher regional distribution of companies, innovation initiatives and professionals, it is still astonishing.
