SA's five most in-demand jobs of 2017

Cape Town - SA job advertising search engine Adzuna on Tuesday announced that SA's "rarest skills" were in the digital and technology sectors, with demands for web developers and coders far outstripping supply.   

To investigate which jobs were in-demand, Adzuna matched supply and demand for jobs across a range of categories on its website. 

"From the 2017 report findings, it’s evident that roughly 70% of the rarest skills fall under the technical and development industries. Other industries that are targeting rare skills include the consultancy, managerial and financial fields," said Adzuna in a statement.

It said its findings correlated broadly with the South African Science, Technology and Innovation Report of 2016, which indicated that a lack of skills can loosely be blamed on SA’s inability to make any real progress in maths and science education and skills development.

How it works 

Jesse Green, country manager for Adzuna SA, said although the data only analysed online job advertisements, the number of observations was high enough to draw the "conclusive inference" that SA companies are increasingly struggling to find technical skills".

Green said that, by matching supply and demand, Adzuna could provide a snapshot of which SA jobs were particularly in demand. 

"The demand for a skill is the number of jobs posted for it by companies," he said. "The supply of a skill is the number of job seeker searches made for it." 

The list below gives the five "rarest' skills according to Adzuna's metrics. 

1. Java developer 

Rareness factor: 128.8. This means that for every 128.8 job adverts on Adzuna from employers for Java coders, there was one job seeker. 

Average salary: R513 000

2. Developer 

Rareness factor: 66.5 - This means that, for every 66.5 job adverts on Adzuna from employers for developers, there was one job seeker. 

Average salary: R467 000

3. PHP developer

Rareness factor: 64.3 - This means that, for every 64.3 job adverts on Adzuna from employers for PHP developers, there was one job seeker. 

Average salary: R410 000

4. Web developer 

Rareness factor: 53.1 - This means that, for every 53.1 job adverts on Adzuna from employers for web developers, there was one job seeker. 

Average salary: R395 000

5. Financial accountant 

Rareness factor: 51.8 - This means that, for every 51.8 job adverts on Adzuna from employers for financial accountants, there was one job seeker. 

Average salary: R471 000

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