Online job aggregator Adzuna has released a new report focusing on the rarest skills and jobs in South Africa.

The report is based on over 140,000 job listings and 1,250,000 job seeker searches, and calculates the ‘rareness factor’ based on the number of job adverts asking for certain skills vs the number of job searchers who claim to have those skills.

Technology (programmers, IT, etc) and financial skills topped the rankings for 2018, while there was a surprising drop in the rarity of engineering skills.

“Either engineers are more abundant, which is doubtful, or for some reason less engineering skills are being advertised for,” said Jesse Green, country manager for Adzuna South Africa.

However, he noted that the average salaries for engineers have remained high.

“Civil engineers, in particular, have come in at over R628,000 on average, quite unchanged since September 2017 with only a 3% increase since then, mostly matching inflation,” he said.

“In fact, while the rarity of skills may have changed, salaries are overall much more stable.

“Only sales managers have see a correlation in rarity and salary increase. Sales management skills are 123% rarer and have seen a 12% average salary increase over the past 8 months.”

He added that registered nurses have also seen a massive increase in demand and ‘rareness’.

“The emigration of 20-30% of the nursing workforce (according to scientific journal papers published between 2001 and 2015) has had an impact on this sector of the job market,” he said.

“However, the exodus of these skills is decreasing, which should see a reprieve to the numbers, which is not the case. Also, although nursing skills are rarer, the salaries have not improved much, only going up by 4% since last September.”

Job skill or title Rareness factor Average salary Java developer 137.0 R537 276 Developer 112.2 R485 210 php developer 102.3 R425 815 Financial accountant 83.1 R459 633 Web developer 80.3 R420 035 Software developer 44.7 R494 772 Net developer 32.2 R471 398 Consultant 29.4 R221 377 Assistant manager 29.2 R221 755 Accountant 24.9 R409 003 Analyst 23.0 R512 305 Technologist 17.6 R492 603 Executive 17.3 R276 871 Business analyst 12.5 R517 295 Recruiter 9.2 R253 276 Designer 7.7 R318 225 Coordinator 6.9 R220 532 Project manager 4.5 R611 566 Pharmacist 3.8 R539 723 Sales manager 3.3 R456 994 Civil engineer 3.3 R628 337 Manager 3.3 R486 613 Engineer 3.2 R589 916 Registered nurse 3.1 R273 888 Bookkeeper 3.0 R181 216 Officer 2.9 R216 544 Planner 2.9 R389 992 Surveyor 2.4 R546 344 Salesperson 2.1 R183 963 Secretary 2.0 R146 710 Assistant 1.9 R140 990 Technician 1.9 R228 453 Supervisor 1.8 R256 713 Controller 1.7 R317 852 Quantity surveyor 1.7 R503 642 Clerk 1.6 R133 733 Foreman 1.2 R464 821 Mechanic 1.1 R430 057 Operator 1.1 R405 546 Chef 0.9 R171 221 Administrator 0.8 R158 470 Receptionist 0.4 R100 472 Nurse 0.3 R273 988 Driver 0.1 R116 103

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