Fachinformatiker/-in is Germany’s core IT apprenticeship, split into two specialisations: Anwendungsentwicklung (application development — programming, software design) and Systemintegration (system integration — networks, servers, infrastructure). It is one of the more flexible dual-system trades, since it places trainees inside everything from small IT service firms to the internal IT departments of large non-tech companies. Here is an honest breakdown of the role, duration, language requirement, pay, and demand — including where the pay data genuinely gets murky, because it does.
What the job actually involves day-to-day
Systemintegration trainees spend their days setting up and maintaining networks, servers and client devices, managing user accounts and security permissions, and troubleshooting infrastructure problems. Anwendungsentwicklung trainees write and test code, work with databases, and take software projects from specification through to deployment, usually inside a team using standard development tools and version control. Both tracks share a common first-year curriculum before splitting into their specialisation, and both spend meaningful time on IT security basics and project documentation, which forms part of the final chamber exam.
Duration
The training runs three years under the standard dual system — on-the-job training combined with Berufsschule instruction — governed by the Berufsbildungsgesetz (BBiG) like most IHK-regulated trades.
German-level requirement
IT is genuinely the sector where you’ll hear the most claims about working in English, and some of that is real: larger companies with international engineering teams do run day-to-day workplace communication partly in English. But that does not remove the German-language requirement for the training itself. The Berufsschule component is taught in German under state education law regardless of employer, and the standard B1 German certificate remains the Federal Foreign Office’s baseline for the training visa. We’ve written more on why “English-taught Ausbildung” claims don’t hold up structurally in our post on Ausbildung in English: Does a No-German Route Actually Exist? — the same logic applies fully to IT training.
Realistic pay — and why the numbers are genuinely harder to pin down here
We want to be direct about a real limitation in the data rather than paper over it. The Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB), Germany’s federal vocational training institute, notes in its own tariff documentation that the reported average pay figures for Fachinformatiker/-in largely reflect training contracts outside the core IT industry — because most Fachinformatiker trainees are actually employed by companies in banking, manufacturing, retail and other sectors that need in-house IT staff, not by dedicated IT-industry employers with their own IT-specific collective agreement. That means there isn’t one clean, IT-specific tariff table the way there is for metalworking or hospitality. The most defensible figure we can give you is BIBB’s own national average across all trades and years for West Germany in 2025: €1,117 in the first year, rising to €1,200, €1,296 and €1,337 by the fourth year — useful as an anchor, not as an IT-specific promise. Some employers, particularly larger tech and finance companies, pay well above this; smaller IT service firms often sit closer to it. Germany’s statutory training-pay floor for 2026 — €724/€854/€977/€1,014 by year — is the legal minimum any employer, IT or otherwise, must pay.
Genuine demand
Here again we’d rather be accurate than impressive. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit’s Fachkräfteengpassanalyse — the federal shortage-occupation analysis — does show shortages in IT roles that require a formal degree, but Ausbildung-level IT training does not carry the same clear, nationally documented shortage status as nursing or the skilled trades. That doesn’t mean IT apprenticeship graduates struggle to find work — digitalisation is a genuine, ongoing hiring driver across almost every German industry — but we won’t attach an official shortage label the data doesn’t support at the Ausbildung level specifically.
How IT compares to other technical routes
If demand certainty matters more to you than IT’s flexibility, mechatronics and electrical trades carry a specific, government-cited shortfall figure that IT training at Ausbildung level doesn’t — see our post on Mechatronics Ausbildung in Germany for that comparison, or our broader review of which Ausbildung trades are actually in shortage in Germany.
Explore the IT route in full
Our IT programme page covers the placement process for both Fachinformatiker specialisations. If you want a straight assessment of your fit for this route, talk to us directly.
Where this comes from: training structure and duration are documented by the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB). National average training pay figures for 2025 (West Germany) and the note on Fachinformatiker pay data limitations are from BIBB’s tarifliche Ausbildungsvergütungen page, as further compiled in the IHK Würzburg-Schweinfurt Ausbildungsvergütungen table. The statutory minimum training pay floor for 2026 is from BIBB’s Mindestausbildungsvergütung page. The B1 language requirement for the training visa is from the German Missions in India vocational training visa checklist, published by the Federal Foreign Office. Shortage occupation context is from the Bundesagentur für Arbeit’s press release on its skilled worker shortage analysis.
