These are the 25 jobs with the rarest skills in South Africa

 ·2 Oct 2016

Online job portal, Adzuna, has conducted research on the most sought after skills by companies and their demand from job seekers in South Africa.

The company lists the skills that push both factors the most to be the rarest skills in the country.

Adzuna looked at the listed job requirements in over 130,000 job listings, assessing the demand for a particular skill, versus job seekers looking for jobs in that specific field.

This is what the jobs site refers to as the “Rareness Factor” – where a factor of 2.0 effectively means there are twice as many vacancies for job seekers looking for that positions.

“If a skill is in high demand but low in supply, this makes it rarer than skills which are low in both available candidates and low in demand,” it said.

“If this does not seem rare enough already, bear in mind that the job seeker looking for work in that skill or job title may not even be qualified or suitable for the position.”

Another notable trend which points to job skill rarity, is salary – where the more in-demand skills are afforded a much higher average salary.

However, Adzuna pointed out that this is not necessarily always the case, where some industries (such as textiles) where there is a need for certain skills, still don’t pay particularly well.

These are the 25 “rarest” skills in South Africa, as well as the average salary offered as at September 2016.

Job skill or title Demand from Companies Demand from Job Seekers Rareness Factor Average Salary
Java Developer 2 181 19 114.8 R528 135
Financial Accountant 996 11 90.5 R439 920
Developer 15 601 224 69.6 R470 872
php Developer 1 458 23 63.4 R395 950
Web Developer 1 366 32 42.7 R407 987
Assistant Manager 948 25 37.9 R218 449
Software Developer 1 219 33 36.9 R496 747
Recruiter 2 450 108 22.7 R513 326
Net Developer 939 50 18.8 R467 460
Consultant 5 644 397 14.2 R277 493
Technologist 929 70 13.2 R486 118
Executive 3 058 262 11.7 R315 045
Analyst 4 054 361 11.2 R531 762
Accountant 3 934 376 10.5 R418 910
Pharmacist 1 284 192 6.7 R506 418
Designer 1 861 280 6.6 R363 890
Coordinator 1 044 267 3.9 R246 187
Planner 872 227 3.8 R449 795
Project Manager 1 370 359 3.8 R558 330
Engineer 8 238 2266 3.6 R596 996
Business Analyst 1 304 361 3.6 R569 417
Manager 22 631 6479 3.5 R498 565
Quantity Surveyor 901 269 3.3 R532 380
Civil Engineer 869 269 3.2 R592 809
Bookkeeper 1 336 490 2.7 R181 150

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