Global war for SA’s tech skills

By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.

Johannesburg, 10 Mar 2025

Pnet investigated international jobs attracting South African talent over 12 months.

South African IT professionals are increasingly getting “poached” by international firms, as the growing digital skills dearth leads to a fierce fight for highly-skilled tech resources.

This is according to online recruitment firm Pnet in its Job Market Trend Report for February 2025.

The Pnet Job Market Trends Report has been created and interpreted by the firm’s expert team of data insights specialists. The report is based on empirical data sourced from The Stepstone Group, South Africa’s online recruitment platforms, which currently hold a combined database of over nine million registered users.

Skills dearth leads to global war for SA software developers

It also includes Stats SA’s “Migration Profile Report for South Africa” which provides data into SA’s “brain drain” and tracks the number of South African professionals hired overseas.

According to Pnet, there has been a significant increase in month-on-month local hiring activity in SA from December 2024 to January2025 by 4% across an array of sectors. Year-on-year hiring activity reflected growth of 9%, compared to January 2024, it says.

Despite this, the migration of skilled professionals to other countries and continents, which offer higher salaries and/or better living conditions, dubbed the “brain drain”, is on the rise.

SA, like many other African countries, has experienced arise in citizens leaving their home country and moving abroad over the last few decade, it says.

“South African IT professionals are in the top three most in demand professionals getting ‘poached’ by international companies. After business and management professionals and finance professionals, IT professionals are ranked third in place when looking at international demand for South African labour,” explains Anja Bates, head of data at Pnet.

“Although, demand for South African IT professionals is relatively high, regionally the international demand is highly dispersed and not concentrated in specific regions or countries.”

Anja Bates, head of data at Pnet.

Pnet investigated international jobs attracting South African talent over 12 months (January to December 2024), with its research showing that 2% of all advertised jobs are international jobs, meaning located outside of SA.

According to Bates, worldwide demand for South African IT professionals is primarily driven by the international need for skilled software developers and systems / network administrators.

Looking at 2024 trends, the top countries seeking South African IT staff were Australia, the Netherlands, Mauritius and the US, she notes.

“All kinds of South African IT roles are in demand, including systems and network administrators (such as system engineers, network engineers, field service technicians) are top in demand in Australia and the Netherlands, followed by software developers. The US and Mauritius are mainly focused on South African software developers,” she explains.

Outside of IT roles, the number one region recruiting for South African talent across sectors is Southern and East Africa – with Namibia, Botswana and Tanzania on top of the list, according to the report.

The second top region to recruit for South Africans is Europe, with the Netherlands, Ireland and Germany frequently looking for South African professionals. Third in place is Oceania, with Australia and New Zealand recruiting in SA. The fourth top region in terms of recruiting South Africans is Asia, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and India on top of the list. West Africa is the fifth top region when recruiting South Africans, with companies particularly in Liberia, Niger and Ghana looking to fill jobs with South African professionals.

According to Offer Zen’s State of the Developer Nation report, over 20% of South African software developers are actively looking to move jobs in search of offshore fortunes. The big shifts brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic led to software developers now being among the most sought-after talent, as global companies adopt emerging tech to power their services and products, it adds.

The top 5 countries recruiting for skilled South African professionals are Australia, Namibia, The Netherlands, Ireland and Germany.

According to stats SA, the number of South Africansliving in other countries increased from about 500 000 in the year 2000 to over900 000 in the year 2020.

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