Data from relocation company, CapRelo, compares the average annual wage around the world, including the average salary of a software engineer.

The group said it looked at the average job salaries around the world by country and how they fair across a number of common fields. For the specific jobs it researched, CapRelo said it relied on self-reported salary information supplied by workers from around the globe.

It pointed out that several countries such as Norway and Sweden do not have federally mandated minimum wages, instead relying on other processes such as union negotiations within each industry to set standards. “In those cases we have listed a minimum wage as n/a,” CapRelo said.

South Africa is also listed as n/a. The country’s National Minimum Wage Act 9 of 2018 (NMWA) came into effect on 1 January 2019. It ensures that every worker will is entitled to payment of a wage not less than R20 for each ordinary hour worked.

On a minimum wage, South Africans can earn R42,000 ($3,000) annually, well below fellow Brics countries Brazil ($3,818), and China ($4,400), but ahead of Russia ($1,276).

Australia shines brightest on the list, with an average minimum wage salary of $28,768, ahead of neighbour, New Zealand ($25,521), and the UK ($21,813).

With technology playing the prominent role it does in modern society, CapRelo evaluated general software engineer salaries.

“Unsurprisingly, given the prominence of Silicon Valley to the American economy, this was the job with the highest salary in the United States of all the professions we evaluated in this study,” it said.

In fact, the $85,000 average salary for an American software engineer was the second highest in the world, trailing only Switzerland’s $94,567.

In South Africa, the average salary drops to $25,704 (R360,790), well below the global average of $40,690 (R571,139).

Many South Africans look abroad to further their careers, with the likes of Australia, Ireland, the US and the UK, all very popular destinations.

Read: South African salaries in 2019: what top IT and tech professionals earn