11 highest demand job skills in South Africa for three years running

Pnet’s latest Job Market Trends report shows that there are 11 professional skills that have been at the top of the demand list for companies in South Africa over the past three years.

Managerial staff on a department level are in particularly high demand, the group said, with recruites constantly looking for candidates with these skills.

According to Pnet, this is specifically for roles like finance managers, sales managers, operations managers as well as business development and HR managers, who are highly sought after.

Even as middle and department managers have been in top demand over the past three years, software developers are close behind, also consistently ranking second.

Pnet said that this is despite job advertising for IT professionals – particularly software developers – decreasing significantly by 45% over the same period.

“Although there has been a decrease in candidate sourcing for software developers, the trend is not as significant,” it said.

“Software developers remain second on the top in demand professionals when it comes to candidate sourcing.”

IT professionals also draw some of the highest salaries, with Pnet highlighting salary ranges for data engineers between R42,900 and R59,100 per month, and Java Developers at between R42,900 and R56, 600 per month.

Pnet said its data shows that recruiters search for profiles of software engineers most frequently, and that these candidates are also scarcer than others.

Along with Business & Management and Finance, professionals in the IT space are also experiencing strong demand for remote work opportunities—up 11% for IT specifically, Pnet said.

Looking at the complete ranking of the top 10 professional skills, there have been few fluctuations over the past few years.

Financial and accounting professionals have given way to representative and sales consultatns, while admin clerks have climbed above systems and network administrators.

A more marked shift in the skills rankings is the rise of bookkeepers, who jumped into the list in 2024, pushing ahead of HR professionals and team leaders and supervisors.

As of 2025, HR professionals have dropped out the top 10.

South African hiring activity under strain

While there are a handful of skills that are still showing strong demand, hiring activity in South Africa is under strain.

Activity has shown a 4% decline when comparing recruitment activity between March 2023 and March 2025.

More positively, hiring activity is up year-on-year, improving 10% from March 2024, and up 4% month-on-month from February 2025.

“This trend reflects continued volatility in the local job market,” Pnet said.

There are also positive trends for certain sectors, where hiring activity is increasing—sometimes significantly.

For example, the design, media and arts sector has seen a 78% jump in hiring activity from last year, with the trend increasing month-on-month in February.

Pnet said that this sector has shown a consistent increase in hiring activity since October 2024.

Sales and marketing also remain on a growth trajectory, with hiring activity increasing 41% and 6% and 44% and 7% on a year/year and month/month basis, respectively.

The Pnet Job Market Trends Report is based on empirical data sourced from The Stepstone Group South Africa’s online recruitment platforms, which currently hold a combined database of over 9 million registered users.