Which Ausbildung professions give applicants from abroad a real chance?

How to choose a profession

Many applicants start with the question “Which Ausbildung is best?” A more useful question is: which profession has open training places, suits me, and is something I can explain in an interview? We suggest checking four points for every profession you consider:

• Demand. Are there many unfilled training places? The job search of the Federal Employment Agency shows you how many companies are looking.
• The work itself. Would you still enjoy it after three years? Read the description in BERUFENET and watch videos from the workplace.
• Language demands. Jobs with a lot of customer contact or paperwork need more German than jobs at a machine or on a construction site.
• Location. Many companies with open places are in small towns. If you only want to live in a big city, your options shrink considerably.

Always search with the German name of the profession. German job titles are gender-neutral in advertisements and often end in “(m/w/d)”, which stands for male, female and diverse.

Overview by field

Production and industry

Food producers, dairies, paper mills and chemical plants run large production lines, often around the clock. They need people who can operate, monitor and maintain these machines. Professions such as machine and plant operator (Maschinen- und Anlagenführer), food technology specialist (Fachkraft für Lebensmitteltechnik), dairy technologist (Milchtechnologe) or paper technologist (Papiertechnologe) are hardly known among German school-leavers, so many places stay empty.

What to expect: shift work, strict hygiene or safety rules, and a lot of technical responsibility once you are trained. The language demands are moderate at work and higher at vocational school, where chemistry, physics and maths are part of the curriculum.

Building trades and services

Plumbing, heating and air conditioning, electrical installation, roofing and industrial insulation all suffer from a shortage of young people. The work is physical, often outdoors or on changing sites, and you learn a trade that is needed everywhere. Industrial insulators (Industrieisolierer), for example, insulate pipes and plants in refineries and power stations, a profession few people in Germany have ever heard of.

In these professions, companies care a lot about reliability and physical fitness. A driving licence can be an advantage later on.

Logistics

Warehouse logistics specialists (Fachkraft für Lagerlogistik) receive, store and dispatch goods and work with scanners, forklifts and warehouse software. The two-year variant is called Fachlagerist. There are many training places, but also more applicants than in production. Professional drivers (Berufskraftfahrer) are in high demand, though you need to pass German driving licence exams as part of the training.

Hospitality and food trades

Cooks, hotel specialists, bakers and butchers are needed across Germany, and many companies in these fields are open to applicants from abroad. Be aware of the working hours: evenings, weekends and early mornings are normal. Customer contact in hotels and restaurants also requires good spoken German.

Nursing and care

The three-year nursing training (Pflegefachfrau or Pflegefachmann) is regulated by its own law, the Nursing Professions Act, not by the Vocational Training Act. It is one of the most important routes for international trainees in Germany, and pay is usually well above the legal minimum. The language demands are high: you talk to patients, relatives and doctors all day and write care documentation.

Acaluna does not place candidates in nursing. We mention it here because a guide to realistic options would be incomplete without it.

IT and office

IT specialist (Fachinformatiker) and the commercial professions such as office management (Kaufmann für Büromanagement) are among the most popular choices of German school-leavers. Companies can choose from many applicants, and the work involves a lot of written and spoken German. This does not make it impossible, but your German and your application have to be very strong. If your main interest is IT, check whether an Ausbildung really is the best route or whether a degree and a different visa type suit you better.

What we see in practice

We place our apprentices mainly in three fields: food and dairy production, industrial services and insulation, and paper and packaging. We chose these fields deliberately. The professions are demanding and pay well, but because hardly anyone in Germany knows them, companies receive very few applications and are genuinely open to candidates from abroad.

Our experience is that apprentices in these less-known professions often do very well. Several of the apprentices we have placed are among the best in their vocational school class, and some finished their training early. The key was never the profession alone. It was that the candidate had chosen it consciously and knew what the work looked like before signing.

What about pay?

Training pay differs by profession, company and region. According to the BIBB, the average collectively agreed training pay in 2025 was 1,209 euros a month across all fields, 1,266 euros in industry and trade and 1,329 euros in the public sector. Our salary guide goes into detail. We would not choose a profession on pay alone: three years is a long time in a job you do not like.

Questions about professions

Sources: Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Federal Employment Agency (BERUFENET). As of September 2026.