German Railway Jobs

[Steam Man]

Has anyone worked on the Railway or travelled on the railway in Germany if they have what is it like because I might just be interested will I have to be able to speak German because I can’t speak any German do the train staff speak good English.

 

[Gloster]

Many German rail staff, including almost all in public facing jobs, speak good, often excellent, English. I expect that the standard is a bit more varied for other jobs, but most would have a reasonable working knowledge. It is mainly in the old East Germany that you may still find older staff without much English. I would think that a reasonable standard of both spoken and written German, and an ability to read and understand the somewhat convoluted German grammar, would be an absolute necessity to get a job. In every job I have had abroad (none of them in Germany) a basic competence in the language was an absolutely necessary.

 

[class ep-09]

If you think about moving to Germany and start working there you have approx 6 weeks .
After that Freedom of Movement ends ( for UK citizens ) and it will be MUCH harder to get job there .

That is of course one of the Brexit “benefits” .

You will be ok, if you have citizenship another EU country but the earnings are lower comparing to UK’s on German railways.
Experienced drivers can earn approx €35,000 / year for example.

On another hand in many places living costs are much lower thank UK + housing / child care is way cheaper, except big cities of course.
Health care / benefits / social care are also much better.

 

[4F89]

"Better" is pretty subjective.....

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Best to learn German first, take an evening class, listen to radio, subscribe to a railway magazine
In a couple of years the situation may have changed, might be clearer
There are an awful lot of foreigners living in Germany, from many different countries, plenty of younger people in the East learnt English at school

 

[JonathanP]

For any skilled job on the German railways you will need to speak excellent German. Without this your opportunities would be limited to jobs like night shift cleaning, or loading catering supplies. And as pointed out, these will soon not be an option for British people. Whatever the colloquial language may be(it's often said that if you work on a building site in Germany, it's more useful to know Polish than German!), the rulebook and all communication are in German.

Since you don't yet seem to have mastered punctuation in English, I would gently suggest that languages might not be your forte.

I do know a British guy that became a driver in Switzerland, so it can be done.