Tax question - job offer - UK vs. Germany (Munich)

Hi all,
I've received an offer for a transfer by my company, from the US office to either to the UK or German office. The German salary is offered at 60K Euros, the UK offer is 41,800 GBP. Although the gross value of the German offer is better, based on my calculations the German taxes are so much higher that the UK take-home pay is better. While I'd prefer to go to Germany for personal reasons (Munich in particular) but it's a bit hard to stomach the drop in pay, especially since moving to Europe will mean a salary drop regardless of which location I choose (it's just the loss is less acute with the UK offer).

Does anyone have advise on any taxes that expats might be able to avoid in Germany to bring down the tax losses? Or can anyone explain if the additional taxes paid in Germany are worth it? Maybe there's some extras that I've overlooked in terms of quality of life. Has anyone else been in this situation? For background, I'm a single guy, 29 years old, no wife or kids, nothing tying me down, so not particularly drawn (at the moment, at least) to things like paternity leave, and since I work in IT, I'm not worried about unemployment protections either. I realize the weather in the UK is not great but the money I might save could be enough to fly myself to Germany all I like, so I'm trying to decide if there's any situation in which it would be better to take the German offer.