Picturesque Stellenbosch has trumped Johannesburg and Cape Town to be named the country’s up-and-coming technology powerhouse, with the highest number of tech jobs per capita.
This is based on a survey conducted by accounting software provider QuickBooks South Africa, which sought to determine the local cities emerging as tech powerhouses in 2025.
According to QuickBooks, Stellenbosch has an average of 36 tech-related jobs per 100 000 people, surpassing major cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town.
It is closely followed by Midrand, with an average of 30 tech-related jobs per 100 000 people, while Johannesburg ranked third with 24 vacancies per 100 000 people.
A QuickBooks SA spokesperson comments: “The rise in technology-related job demand in SA may be driven by increased internet availability, investment in digital infrastructure and a high youth population.
“This study highlights that technology-related opportunities are abundant beyond major cities and often come with above-average salaries. For those considering a career change or launching a tech business, cities such as Stellenbosch and Midrand offer high demand for tech talent, while being more affordable compared to larger urban hubs.”
Located in the Western Cape province, Stellenbosch is a university town. It’s surrounded by the vineyards of the Cape Winelands and the mountainous nature reserves of Jonkershoek and Simonsberg.
The study notes the area’s rise as a technology centre could be due to its proximity to Stellenbosch University, which is known for its engineering, computer science and data analytics programmes.
Other cities featured on the list include Centurion in fourth place, Cape Town in fifth place, with Montangu, Ballito, Secunda, Randburg and Komani in sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th place, respectively.
Western Cape capital city Cape Town has 19 tech jobs per 100 000 people. “It’s a leading technology hub thanks to its high concentration of start-ups, co-working spaces and a strong venture capital network.
“With some of the country’s top universities producing skilled graduates, Cape Town maintains a steady talent pipeline. Despite having 650 vacancies, its large population makes it more competitive to land a role than smaller cities ranked on the list.”
For its research, QuickBooks collected data from Indeed, examining 16 000 job postings across various locations and categories. Details such as job title, company name, location, posting date and job description were extracted to reflect current market trends.
Jobs were classified into tech, artificial intelligence (AI) and non-tech categories based on keyword matching and analysis of job titles and descriptions. Ambiguous roles were further analysed for keywords, with flagged cases manually reviewed to ensure accuracy.
The report also highlighted the average salaries for the most common roles. Average salaries were calculated by standardising job titles and aggregating data from sources like Payscale.
According to the study, the top earning position is engineering manager, with an average annual pay of R840 000.
Following closely are senior developer and senior Java developer, each earning an average of R813 831 per year.
The most in-demand positions include software engineer, senior software engineer and data engineer.
In terms of AI-related job opportunities in SA, the research shows they remain relatively limited, with Johannesburg and Cape Town being the only cities to have AI roles at the time of analysis.
“Currently, Johannesburg leads the market with an average of 0.94 AI-related jobs per 100 000 people, followed by Cape Town with 0.09 role vacancies per 100 000 people.”
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