Handpicked Berlin and Ravio are unpacking five findings from the 2026 Berlin Tech Salary Survey – with European benchmark data added in real time.

Berlin's annual tech salary survey is back – and this year, Handpicked Berlin's findings are set against Ravio's real-time European compensation benchmarks for the first time.

Igor Ranc (Handpicked Berlin) and Nico Kaml (Ravio) will work through five standout findings together: where Berlin salaries sit relative to Europe, where the steepest compensation jumps occur, which roles command a premium, what the gender pay gap data actually tells us, and why a third of Berlin tech workers are planning to leave.

If you're making compensation decisions in the German market in 2026, this is the data you need and your chance to ask questions.

What you'll take away A clear picture of where Berlin sits in the European market, across roles, levels, and career tracks – and a benchmark for what competitive pay looks like right now.

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Ravio x Handpicked Berlin: Berlin tech salaries 2026 – What the numbers actually say

Join Amanda Moore (Senior Director, Reward, Performance and Analytics at Beyond ONE) and Natela Mosulishvili (Senior HRBP – Compensation and Benefits at Suir Engineering) for an honest conversation about how to handle employee relocation from a reward perspective.

Relocation sits at one of the messiest intersections in reward. 

It touches compensation philosophy, tax, benefits, legal compliance, and some of the most difficult one-to-one conversations a reward professional will have – and yet most teams are figuring it out case-by-case, with a policy that was written for a different business.

Amanda and Natela have navigated it from very different angles. 

Amanda spent six years leading global mobility at Gymshark, moving people into new markets as the business scaled internationally, before relocating to Dubai herself for her senior director role at Beyond ONE – a scale-up spanning multiple markets with a rapidly growing headcount. 

Natela brings a different lens entirely: a highly technical, project-based workforce at Suir Engineering where mobility is built into how the business operates, and where the complexity is less about the employee wanting to move and more about deploying the right expertise to the right place at the right time.

Together they'll work through four areas of relocation from a reward perspective:

Deciding your philosophy: does comp follow the person or the role

Building a framework: what works, what breaks, and what most companies get wrong

The employee conversation: ensuring the right support for movers, and how to tell someone their salary is going down

As always, there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions, share experiences, and learn from fellow reward professionals who are navigating the same challenges.

How to approach employee relocation – the reward perspective

Join Petra Skoglund (Senior HR Strategist at People by Cederfeldt) for a live conversation for reward and HR leaders at Nordic companies on workforce planning, board alignment, and building a fair comp strategy when budgets aren't growing.

Budgets are tighter. Headcount decisions are harder. And the pressure to stay competitive on pay, without just spending more is real.

This webinar is for reward and HR leaders at Nordic companies navigating exactly this. We're bringing in Petra Skoglund (Senior HR Strategist at People by Cederfeldt) who spent last year working with 30+ clients across Sweden, the Nordics, and Europe on comp strategy, workforce planning, and getting leadership teams aligned on reward.

Connecting workforce planning to comp strategy in a way that holds up with the business

Defining what fair looks like during downsizing and restructuring

Aligning CFOs and HR and making the case for comp decisions at the top table

Rewarding fairly when pay increases aren't on the table

Comp strategy for Nordic leaders

Join David Lynas (Head of Reward, Just Eat Takeaway.com) and Tobias Brinck (Head of Compensation, Benefits and HRIS, Kry) for an honest conversation about what rewards really looks like across every stage of an M&A – the preparation, the chaos, and the integration.

M&A is one of the most requested topics among reward and compensation professionals and yet it's rarely spoken about openly. Whether you're at a company that's about to acquire, about to be acquired, or somewhere in the middle of a messy integration, the rewards challenges are significant and the stakes are high.

David and Tobias have lived through it from multiple angles.

David has led his team  through the Just Eat and Takeaway.com merger, the all-share combination with Grubhub, and the recent acquisition by Prosus – covering being acquired, acquiring, and everything in between. 

Tobias built the compensation and benefits function for acquisitions at Klarna, integrating companies including PriceRunner and Flex Engage, and has since been navigating more local integrations at Kry, including the recent acquisition of a private health company in Sweden.

Together they walked us through four phases of M&A from a rewards perspective:

Business as usual: how to prepare your rewards function before a deal is even on the table

Due diligence: what rewards needs to surface, flag, and protect during the deal process

Completion: the decisions that need to happen fast, and the ones that shouldn't

Integration: merging two compensation philosophies, retaining key talent, and building something coherent on the other side.

Catch up with the webinar on-demand

If you're more of a reader than a watcher, here's a few of the most interesting insights from Tobias and David's discussion on navigating M&As.

Key takeaway 1: Prepare for M&A before it happens

Most reward professionals only think about M&A readiness when a deal is already on the table – which means you’re solving complex questions in a high-pressure, low-time environment.

The decisions you make in day-to-day reward work (bonus plan provisions, share scheme rules, talent retention strategies) should form the foundation of your M&A readiness. If a deal landed tomorrow, would you know what happens to your bonus schemes in a hostile takeover versus a wanted acquisition? Do your equity plan rules account for different deal types?

Being prepared doesn't mean being rigid – it means having a process so that when the unexpected 10% happens, you can handle it calmly rather than reactively.

💡 Practical application: Audit your current reward infrastructure through an M&A lens. Review your bonus plan, share scheme, and redundancy policy for change of control provisions and make sure you know exactly what they'd trigger under different deal scenarios. Build close relationships with your legal and finance teams before any deal happens, to ensure youearn the seat at the table early when one does.

Key takeaway 2: Get into due diligence as early as possible

Reward is rarely the first team brought into a deal – that tends to be finance, legal, and the C-suite. But the due diligence checklist for reward is a long one: compensation philosophies, benefits structures, equity promises, contract types, work visas, union relationships, local compliance risks, and more.

The earlier you get involved, the more time you have to uncover what you're inheriting.

The biggest mistakes happen when reward is brought in too late and compliance risks, undocumented promises to key employees, or tricky benefit obligations only surface after the deal closes.

Key takeaway 3: Communicate relentlessly at completion – and don't stop

For reward and HR professionals, completion is a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity: equity payouts, compliance checks, day one communications.

But for the employees being acquired, it's a period of real anxiety – about job security, pay, bonuses, and what the future looks like.

The biggest mistake at this stage is going quiet after the "big bang" announcement. Rumours fill silence fast. You don't need to have all the answers, but you do need to be visible, honest about what you don't know yet, and consistent in updating people – even when there's nothing new to report.

💡 Practical application: Plan your communication calendar beyond day one. Week one, month one, and year one all need their own rhythm. If you can't answer a question yet, say so and give a realistic timeline. Overpromising a two-week answer you can't deliver will cost you more trust than admitting you don't know yet.

Key takeaway 4: Retention isn't just financial but the financial piece still matters

The most powerful retention lever at completion is clarity: people who know they have a role, understand what it looks like, and feel genuinely engaged are far more likely to stay than people who've been handed a cash retention bonus and left in the dark.

That said, financial retention still has a critical role – particularly for key talent, founders, and reputationally significant people.

Retention approaches need to be segmented: different people need different things, and someone who's just vested millions in equity requires a completely different conversation to someone mid-career who cares about growth and stability.

Key takeaway 5: Integration is where culture is won or lost

Bringing two companies together on paper is one thing, but getting employees from an acquired business to feel genuinely part of something new is another challenge entirely.

Leave an acquired company to "run independently" for too long and you risk them building an identity that's resistant to integration later.

The reward piece – aligning compensation philosophies, levelling, benefits – is much easier to land if you've done the cultural groundwork first. That means listening to founders and senior leaders, understanding what's made their company what it is, and being transparent about where the gaps are and how you're bridging them.

💡 Practical application: Don't treat integration as a reward exercise alone. Invest in the relationship – physically if you can. Get buy-in from the acquired company's key people before you roll out any structural changes, so they can vouch for the process to their own teams. And be honest about where your company falls short compared to what they had, alongside where they'll gain. Trust built through transparency is the thing that makes integration actually stick.

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