Tech jobs that pay more than the average salary in South Africa

Most South Africans working within the IT sector will have to accumulate five to ten years of working experience before earning more than the country’s average monthly salary.

Statistics South Africa recently released its latest Quarterly Employment Survey for the fourth quarter of 2024, indicating that the average monthly salary paid to employees has decreased to R28,231 from R28,274 in the previous quarter.

While the Stats SA data covers the salaries of eight of the country’s core industries, such as mining, manufacturing, electricity, construction, trade, and transport, it does not focus on the IT sector.

Therefore, MyBroadband decided to use data recently published by Analytico to compare the monthly salaries of prominent IT sector roles and determine the amount of experience needed to earn above the national average.

These include software development, consulting, IT management, security, web development, and tech support.

Although the data includes salaries for C-level executives, these were not included in this comparison.

The report also broke down the data into how much employees earn based on their level of experience, which is as follows:

• Entry-level — Qualified professional with little relevant experience (10th percentile)
• Experienced — Professional with relevant experience (25th percentile)
• Mid-level — Professional with 5–10 years relevant experience (median)
• Senior — Professional who has progressed to a senior level (75th percentile)
• High-end — Someone very senior and well-paid (90th percentile)

According to Analytico’s data, South Africans looking for work with little experience will struggle to find something providing compensation close to R28,200 per month.

This is except for software developers and IT analysts, who can earn up to R39,000 and R34,000 for entry-level positions.

Professionals with slightly more relevant experience who fall within the experienced bracket are more likely to earn above the national average.

These include IT consultants, people working in IT management, project management, and security roles, as well as software developers and analysts.

All jobs surveyed except tech support and networking roles earn above the national average once they have five to ten years of experience.

The highest-earning are software developers and IT consultants, who can expect to earn around R79,000 and R70,000 per month, respectively.

Salaries that rose above the national average once entering the “mid-level” bracket include education, research, design, web development, sales and marketing, systems administration, and database design.

Tech support and networking salaries rose above the national average once they entered the “senior” bracket.

It is important to note that the results contain salaries from small businesses to large companies and various locations around the country, which can influence salary levels.

Someone working for a large corporation in Gauteng or Cape Town can expect to earn more than someone working for a small enterprise in a small town.

The table below shows Analytico’s results for salaries earned by various IT jobs in South Africa at five levels of experience.