Germany’s PhD candidates rise 1.8% to 216,200 in 2025
Germany had 216,200 people enrolled in PhD programmes in 2025, up 3,800 or 1.8% from 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Source: Federal Statistical Office Germany · August 26, 2026 at 1:04 PM · AI-assisted report
Single-sourceKUALA LUMPUR, 26 AUGUST 2026 —
Germany had 216,200 people enrolled in PhD programmes in 2025, up 3,800 or 1.8% from 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Market Impact
The female share held steady at 49% with 106,400 candidates, unchanged from the prior year. Average age was 30.5 years, with women at 30.1 years and men at 30.9 years. A quarter of candidates—54,200—held foreign citizenship, Destatis said.
Human medicine and health sciences drew the largest cohort at 64,100 (30%), followed by mathematics and natural sciences with 47,300 (22%) and engineering with 40,100 (19%). Engineering showed the strongest gender skew, 76% male, while art and art sciences were 66% female. Men most often chose engineering (30,400), while women concentrated in human medicine and health sciences (39,900).
First-time doctoral registrations rose 3% to 35,800, with 27% of newcomers—9,800—foreign nationals, slightly above the overall foreign share of 25%.
Just four universities accounted for 18% of all candidates. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München led with 10,200, followed by Technische Universität München with 10,100, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg with 9,600 and Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen with 8,000.
Destatis introduced the PhD statistics in 2017; data before 2020 are not comparable because the series was still being built. Detailed tables are available in the GENESIS-Online database and the Promovierenden report on Destatis’s higher-education theme page.
Related: Kuala Lumpur